Toward the end of Ethan Bronner’s appearance at Vassar last night, a woman in the aisle melted down yelling at him. "What I’m hearing from you is only one side. Your son is in the IDF. You are Jewish… The way you talk is totally pro-Israel." Then Fanny Prizant of Woodstock demanded, What is it about the New York Times? Why don’t they have someone else to at least put across the other side of the story?
Prizant was quite upset, and I found myself nodding in agreement. It had been a bizarre evening. It was like a lecture in a Hitchcock film, the setting a gaunt Edwardian-era hall at an upstate NY college, and only a few people in the room are in on the story and the man on the stage is clueless. Prizant’s was the third or fourth hostile question. I wondered why Bronner went through with the lecture to begin with. He must be a little masochistic, or he has a strong sense of journalistic duty. That is how he came off, as a dutiful New York Timesman, a little hectic, with little sense of the new American scene. When the story of his son being in the Israeli army broke, I said it was going to dog him and the Times, and you can see that that is happening.
The problem isn’t the son. It’s Bronner’s degree of identification with Israel. I kept looking at my watch waiting for him to say One Palestinian Name. Finally it came at about minute 45: university president Sari Nusseibeh. I’m pretty sure it was the first mention of any Palestinian he knows. The world according to Bronner is a Jewish one. There was the friend who invited him to an orthodox Westchester congregation. His writer friend in Israel who counseled him to tell Jewish audiences back here that Israel is an apartheid state (and to tell college audiences the opposite; Israeli dissimulation). There was a string of Israeli generals and officials’ names. Meridor, Ben Gurion, Barak, Netanyahu. And Michael Oren–favorably of course.
Bronner said that it was a lot harder to cover Arab societies because they are closed, don’t have a free transparent democratic discourse. Well you might extend yourself.
He made all kinds of excuses for Israelis. He said that they killed civilians in Gaza because they warned people in Arabic over the telephone to leave their homes and then the next day they went into the neighborhood and if there were people still around, they assumed they were Hamas fighters. I wonder if he ever printed any of that defense of war crimes in the newspaper? He said the settlers were openly flouting the "moratorium" on building–has he told his readers that?–and he related the settlers’ story with empathy. "History is made by people who never stop, and these people never stop… They are not going to walk away just because someone declares a moratorium. … They have an almost erotic attachment to the land."
Then he said there was a case you could make that the occupation was not illegal. Though yes, most countries regard it as illegal. He spoke with real feeling, warmth and understanding about Zionist history. I learned about Zionism from him; and of course he followed it up by lauding the achievement of the Jews in making this Israel, with $30,000 GDP, a high-tech "hothouse."
It wasn’t a worldly talk–there was no sense of a wider world. No mention of BDS, or of the Palestinian rage at the wall, or changing Jewish attitudes in the U.S., or the crackdown on critical groups in Israel. Bronner has no scope. Asked "Do you have a son in the IDF, yes or no?", he blurted a confession: "My son entered the IDF five weeks ago." He added not a moment’s thoughtfulness about this event; why did it happen, what is your sense of attachment to Israel, how does the son’s decision (was it a decision? is he a citizen?) affect him? This made the evening bizarre; because he had spent a lot of the previous 45 minutes praising the effectiveness of the army, saying they shut down attacks from Lebanon post ’06, and shut down the Gaza rockets with Operation Cast Lead.
I cringed hearing his rationalization of the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem. He said the house evictions arose from the technicality that many Jews owned real estate in East Jerusalem before the city was split in ’48 and the Jordanians took over east of the Green Line and Palestinians moved into the houses. Now that Israeli courts have cleared the titles, some Jewish owners have chosen to sell their houses to settlers. Bronner said the problem is that by granting pre-48 title to Jews, the court opened the door for Palestinians to claim their old houses in West Jerusalem.
"I live in West Jerusalem. My entire neighborhood was Palestinian. … So I think it’s a very worrying decision… and one causing a great deal of anxiety there.."
Does he have any idea how this sounds? All the Jews worried about losing their houses in West Jerusalem. Gosh. Where does his heart lie? What is the likelihood of the Said family getting their house back, or Ghada Karmi getting hers?
Bronner said a lot of smart things. About Iran, about Israel’s crisis. He has a good working mind, and his meritocratic professional code. Maybe I will pass along some of his smart points in days to come, to be fair. But the spirit of the night was, This is a man completely engaged by the Jewish story (and yes, hosted by Jewish Studies at Vassar). That is why Fanny Prizant lost it in the aisle. Bronner seemed scared by her. He said he couldn’t speak for the Times. I raised my hand to ask a question. He didn’t point to me, but I was going to say, "Being a Jew means that Zionism will call on you. Myself I said ‘No thank you.’ So my question is, Are you a Zionist?" I think he is so masochistic and so dutiful that he would speak honestly, and say Yes.
I return to the mood of a lecture in a Hitchcock movie, a little scary, a little funny. At least a dozen people out of 120 there are angry at the Times for its imbalance. This rage is out there. The most important international story and the Times has a not very reflective man in Jerusalem who is in the pocket of one side, and people know it. I got the feeling Bronner was shocked by the rage that is now abroad in the U.S. Don’t expect him to write about it.
Reading this report shows, clearly, that bronner has adopted (if he hadn’t always subscribed to it) the mainstream Israeli narrative, with all its racism, historical revisionism and ethnic supremacy.
Not only that, but he seems to have cozied up to key figures in the establishment, something a “journalist” like Dan Margalit or – worse still – Ehud Ye’ari would do.
He bears all the hallmarks of an ideologue, a hack and an apologist.
I never held the Times in high esteem, anyway, but this further enforces my opinion about the newspaper and its managers.
On a side note, the Washington Post seems to be tiny bit more fair when reporting on the Israeli/Palestinian issue, but it too, is an “establishment” newspaper.
Bronner is horrified of the angry Arab masses moving into West Jerusalem to presumably rape the good Jewish women and lower the property values.
I swear to God, could it get any more “Jim Crow”? Is Bronner starting a “Jewish” Citizen’s Council?
The reason they take junkets like this is to try to show that these views and positions held by Bronner is “normalcy.” That he can still draw a crowd and is invited by those who represent these twisted views on campuses across the country. It is like pushing the outside of the envelope of “fair and balanced” journalism, how far can I go and still display that I am held with esteem in the public eye. Well, just just shows how one sided and compromised these “fourth estate” representatives can go, they can be veritable pits of propaganda and partisanship and still ply their so-called trade. Journalism is almost veritably dead in the MS print media.
These junkets are useful for the Times. They can measure the pulse of contentious issues or get useful feedback from the the people. I hope this trip will give Bronner something to report about back at the office. NYTimes is slowly being understood by many as a corrupt agency.
So much for a well informed public, and shows why the US media is the laughingstock of the Western world.
Of course the only Palestinian whom Bronner mentions is Sari Nusseibeh! Among the doves of the Palestinian political elite this Oxford- and Harvard- educated man was the most naively ‘dovish’, the most forgiving of Israel, and identified to such a degree with the Israeli side (socially, in his peace activism and in his writing), that Palestinian intellectuals were disillusioned with him and many excoriated him. He abandoned the right of return in advance of even negotiations on the issue. Only very recently after Gaza did he change gears and finally say ‘Ok, this is it. All of what Israel is doing is not cool. The peace process has been a sham.’
“History is made by people who never stop and these people never stop.”
The settlers’ bigotry is certainly 24/7. And Bronner admires them. In fact I have rarely seen such frank public admiration for bigotry.
Philip, you are lucky to have attended a meeting addressed by such a noted expert in the I/P field, who is actually resident in Al-Quds/Jerusalem (albeit in a house probably actually owned by a filthy Ayrab, who may sell it to some other filthy Ayrab settlers, who may put our super-journalist out on the road – I like the thought).
VR
Quite so. I don’t have a television, and can’t buy newspapers on this island, so I get all my information from the internet, which serves me very well indeed.
Ethan Bronner and his son are both Americans, no?
Shouldn’t his son be fighting for freedom fries in Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan/Somalia/Yemen?
Halacha (Jewish law) does not take any interest in the squabbling among the nations. Whether one nation or another lives or dies does not matter. Only the survival of the Jewish nation/tribe/race matters.. It is perhaps regrettable that the nations squabble and do not follow the Noachide laws, but it is of no consequence.
What is of consequence is the survival of the Jewish nation and therefore the countless Jewish laws against mongrelizing, fornicating and fraternizing with non-Jews. Hence, the survival of America or the Iraqis is purely secondary. The primary question is whether the survival of America or the survival of Iraq better advances the survival of the Jewish nation (aka “is it good for the Jews”).
Given that 4000 year understanding of Jewish law, where should a devout Jew like Mr. Bronner or his son better invest their martial energies? Fighting for America? Fighting in wars among The Nations? Or fighting directly for and with Jews for the survival of the Jewish nation and the Jewish homeland? I think the answer is obvious.
I respect both father and son. They see where their true loyalties lie and they follow them. Would that Americans had the same loyalty and devotion to their nation.
Pro-Israel Jewish organizations have been spending millions of dollars each year to propagate lies about leaders and academics who have the conscience to speak truth against the Zionist-regime. Currently, they’re churning those lies about the ruling elites in Iran, Gaza, Syria, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Turkey, South Africa and several other countries.
“For us, this was always the primary concern, because a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel,” Meagan Buren, director of research and training at ‘The Israel Project’, a pro-Israel group active in anti-Iran Hasbara (propaganda) – as reported in Jewish Daily Forward last week.
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
It sounded you had the spin out from clarity on this Phil.
Rage. I rage that you neglected to mention once, the Hamas rocket-fire after the December 17th cease-fire ending last year. I saw it is a great journalistic ommission, a qualitative one.
A deferrence to solidarity, a self-censorship, in contrast to a deferrence to journalistic responsibility.
You mean deference to the NY Times brand of journalistic integrity, responsibility?
All the news fit for yuze? Yeah, Phil should flog himself for not genuflecting to the MSM canon on the I-P situation.
Witty, your so-called rage is worth nothing.
The word is spelled deference and the other one is spelled omission
link to hrw.org
In a much shorter time-frame, Israel had been (and continues) bombarding Gaza.
Israel blockaded Gaza, which is affecting (much more adversely) 1.5M people. Before all of this happened, Israel was attempting to colonize Gaza. Israel controls Gaza indirectly, despite the ‘withdrawal’.
Israel had de-developed Gaza’s economy for ideological and racist reasons.
Israel broke the cease-fire as well as not living up to the terms of the cease-fire by sufficiently alleviating the blockade.
Israel planned this attack months and months in advance and purposefully targeted the civilian infrastructure.
Zionists like to talk about these crude rockets. How many people did the rockets kill? How many were fired?
Compare the superficial and dishonest rhetorical tactic of mentioning the sheer number of rockets fired but not the casualties.
Now consider that Israel – in a much shorter time frame, bombarded Gaza. Shelled Gaza.
In the same time frame, Israel continued the blockade, the occupation, and killed more Gazans.
All Zionists can do is mention the number of crude rockets fired back.
They ignore that on a superficial level both sides were fired into the other’s territory. However, looking into the situation in more detail, Israel carried out more attacks in a shorter time frame and more overall. More people killed, etc. And the blockade continues.
Cliff, you’re forgetting the basic law of Wittyism–there is no violence until a Palestinian initiates it.
NOVEMBER 4TH.
You’re an asshole, Witty.
We need to incorporate the shelling of Gaza by Israel, in addition to everything else in our arguments.
Witty’s arguments are BS anyway but Zionists rely on the superficial number of rockets fired (emotional blackmail).
They say ‘what country would allow that?’ – as if the Palestinians are non-existent. What people would allow themselves to be occupied and colonized? To be subjected to daily humiliation and brutality while they watch their land and resources stolen out in the open?
In every facet, we need to mention all these injustices. Everything.
Richard: You are behaving like a troll here, and if you are not careful you might win Shmuel’s weekly prize. Phil’s post is about a reporter for a supposedly objective newspaper, one that has established rules that prevent its people from taking sides, signing petitions, even attending rallies.
Phil watched this man give a lecture and answer questions, ignoring much of the story. I sense you are as surprised as the rest of us at his bias, but you reflexively try to change the subject by pointing at Phil — who does not work for a mainstream newspaper, and is not subject to its rules of objectivity.
So let’s get back to the post itself: do you think Bronner is the kind of person you can trust to report fairly and accurately on Israel/Palestine?
I note that Ethan Bronner spent more time in Gaza than Phil, without a tour, three months before Phil.
I don’t respect his trashing another journalist for emphasizing different things than he would.
When he does and says things that merit respect, I say so. When he disappoints, I’ll say it as well.
I don’t know Bronner enough to state that he is “above reproach”. I’ve enjoyed his comments. They’ve illuminated me, including informing me of the dignity of Gazan civilians.
That Phil and others don’t see that in his writing, and likely in his personal presentation, is a tragedy.
Mooser and others speak of “Ziocane”, as a numb-ness, a willing blindness (that probably exists to an extent). But, there is a glaring anti-Ziocane as well, which I describe as Pavlovian.
Rather than work to actually change things in Gaza, in Israel, Phil has chosen to dedicate his finite time in this world to trashing another journalist. Phil is lucky that he doesn’t have children that could pose an irony to his existence, that might make his reporting “a conflict of interest”.
Not myself though. Not Ethan Bronner (our age). Not Michael Lerner (whose son is in the IDF). We have other dilemmas than Phil’s.
Whoa, Richard, try decaf.
Here’s my reply, a repeat of my comment to you in the “Bronner at Santa Barbara” post:
I don’t appreciate your personal attacks on Phil. Until you force yourself to spend two hours of your life reading the Goldstone Report, you have no right to criticize him for his willingness to confront the realities in Gaza by actually going there.
Do you really expect a guy who makes a living out of hating Israel to be objective?
Mr Hate talks about objectivity!
RW is pissed that we are undermining his beloved NY Times and that yesterday one of his heroes, Bradley Burston, had a great op-ed in Ha’aretz that shoots down Richard’s vision of Israel. Is he undergoing a “paradigm shift”? I hope so.
You are confused about my vision for and of Israel.
Neither is based in reality. What’s the point of counting the hairs of a unicorn’s tail?
Witty’s zionism is worth noting; here it is in a clear bottle:
link to counterpunch.org
When I tried to post just now, I got a Phili-pally response that said:
Hmmm, your comment seems a bit spammy. We’re not real big on spam around here.
I was quoting one internet article, and only the internet address of its writer (Xymphora at link to
I made a big post to edan, citing two Yesh Din studies and a partial list of settler crimes.
Usually if you get that auto-message, the message shows up later in the day.
In my case it’s because I linked 3 websites. Apparently there is a limit. Probably an auto-spam thing.
Yes, I had a list of sites documenting settler stone-throwing, but the system rejected it.
Too long, too short …
It seems that more than one hot link induces aphasia in the blog’s technology.
post the links without making them hot — ie. eliminate the http:// and instead of a . type dot….
PG – my sense is that this is a step taken to prevent the hasbara spew we saw recently with that Baruch troll that showed up and started spamming the site with propaganda. I’m sure Mondo will strike the right balance soon.
No, it’s been that way since before.
The article at link to xymphora.blogspot.com
is well worth reading. It doesn’t deal with the Israel/Palestinian situation at all, but expresses anger at supine Americans.
Soma holiday anyone?
Amazing report, Phil. In this day and age, it’s astounding that Bronner is taken aback at the groundswell of anger at his racist reportage. The Times bleeds readers by the day because of its arrogant worldview, and Bronner seems like a dinosaur. The problem is that even in the wired world, the Times still clings to its age-old reputation as the “newspaper of record.” Seems to me the equivalent of Pravda during the Cold War.
Stay on him, Phil and Adam — he could be an important symbol of the change that’s about to come.
Danielle Pletka, surely a Bronner soul-mate, was on C Span yesterday, spouting the same propaganda.
It occurred to me that 1. she’s boring; 2. she — and Bronner, and the lot of the zioncaine-addicted, are like the 6th repeat of a bad movie. Everybody knows the lines, they are notable only for their inanity.
Aren’t the Jewish people ashamed to be associated with such uncreative people who are so attached to the past and so obviously divorced from what the rest of the world KNOWS?
Bronner is not the only one. Alan Elsner, a senior editor for the Reuters News agency, also has the same problem of Zionism-attachment
link to nottooshaabi.wordpress.com
but read a lot of waffle until you get to the guts.
I do find it interesting that Bronner would so openly expose the hypocrisy of the Israeli hasbara campaign – Tell one lie to Jews, another lie to colleges.
Philip and Adam, you’ve got it wrong. You are far too American-concentrated to see the whole picture, even of the small bit of the Middle East that you profess to discuss. The War of Ideas in the Middle East is a nonsense.
Until we see some posts covering Israeli threats against Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, mere telling tales about New York Times journalists is not enough
Glenn Greenwald (who lives in Brazil with his boyfriend) scored 291 comments
on his last Middle East related post dated 2nd February at: link to salon.com
Your best recent score was 148, and they are the same half-dozen computer-bashers (I am one myself) who always argue amongst each other.
Good point, I read Ha’aretz this morning about Lieberman’s threats against Syria and the turmoil and call for him to step down from Kadima. The shit is stirring, it might hit the fan.
As one of the frequent computer-bashers I’d say that I appreciate this site because it has a tone that I appreciate, mixing the mundane and the personal with standard politics (if that’s a clear term) and more academic things. I don’t suppose we’re moving the earth on its axis.
I do think that the main ideas that are at war – legitimacy, terrorism, 1948, divine donation – are discussed, even if we don’t fully cover all their effects and applications.
Assassination of Hamas Leader
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1146385.html
I can’t understand why boycotts of Israeli academics and government officials are gaining momentum, huh.
a hypothesis: Bronner is neurologically incapable of processing information that is contrary to the hasbara he has incorporated into the way he understands the world.
The neurological pathways simply do not exist for someone so totally committed to Israelist propaganda.
The phenomenon is a corollary of that noted statement that Ron Suskind:
“Actors” like Bronner do, indeed, live as “history’s actors” in the reality that they have created, but that reality is by their own declaration NOT REAL, not RATIONAL, not in step with the values the rest of the world acts upon and within.
But so thoroughly have hasbarists and ‘reality-shapers’ seduced themselves that they no longer have the capacity to slip out of role and into the world of real, living, breathing humanity.
They have an almost erotic attachment to the hatred of arabs.
On an unrelated note, take a moment to tell Carlos Santana that not only are you a huge fan of his one-of-a-kind, legendary talents, but you appreciate that he respected BDS and chose not to play in Israel this summer. Tell him Richard Witty sent you. fanmail@santana.com
Can anyone name a New York Times Jerusalem correspondent who was “fair” or
“balanced?”
This discussion about Bronner and the New York Times reminds me of another topic – the Ethan Bronners of television. Try watching television one night without an Arab/Muslim villain. From “24″ to “Numbers” to “Criminal Minds.” There seem to be many Bronners at work on tv as well. And I notice no bad guys on tv are ever Jewish.
I as intrigued by the historical revisionism in Bronner’s praise of the IDF for ” shutting down attacks from Lebanon post ‘06.” It goes hand-in-hand with his “news analysis” from the early days of the Gaza offensive in which he stated that the background of the 2006 Lebanon war was that Hezbollah “was lobbing deadly rockets into Israel with apparent impunity and had captured an Israeli soldier in a crossborder raid.”
link to nytimes.com
Not quite. Since Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from its two-decade long occupation of southern Lebanon, there were a handful of rocket incidents by other groups over the years. Israel did not even pretend that this precipitated its invasion. That pretext was the crossborder raid. Hezbollah never lobbed deadly rockets into Israel “with impunity,” and only did so after Israel’s bombing/invasion campaign had begun. Now Bronner remembers something that didn’t happen — Israelis bearing up under incessant rocket fire until they just couldn’t take it anymore. That was the Gaza excuse, not the Lebanon one. The fact that he sees both campaigns as being successful in stopping the rocket fire is deeply troubling as well.
I seem to remember that Marlon Brando was once forced to apologise for mentioning that negative portrayals of Jewish characters are near unthinkable in Hollywood, so the fact that Jews and non-Jews are of the same humanity is obscured. In the end, this whole practice, including the relentless demand for apologies, is very alienating. Sophia Loren played a good Muslim a mid-60′s film called something like ‘Arabesque’ (which I found entertaining) but she had no particularly Muslim characteristics, not even the hint of a veil: there were also, of course, plenty of bad Muzzies even then, appropriately swarthy. We will wait a long time for a Muslim doing something good in popular television fiction because his/her religion calls for it. And we think we’re an open society.
In today’s Independent, the same part of the UK press for which Robert Fisk writes, there is an article by the horrible Lorna Fitzsimons, so vapid that I can’t think how to reply to it. All will be well because a) Barak has claimed that a Palestinian state is vital for Israel’s security b) the soi-disant Prime Minister of Palestine was warmly welcomed at the recent ‘Defence and Security Conference’. You bet he was.
“Ethan Bronner”
bronnere@nytimes.com
This blocking of the other side of this story is not something new at all. Many folks have been aware of their Israel bias for decades.
“I got the feeling Bronner was shocked by the rage that is now abroad in the U.S. Don’t expect him to write about it.”
This rage is not new, just that via the internet the rage is channeled through instead of being blocked by New York Times and other bloody rags that have done the I lobbies bidding for decades.
The other issue is that so called progressive Jews are coming out in mass validating that you can be pro Israel based on the 67 border, Pro Palestine and Pro Peace instead of being PEP’s .
Watching Naomi Klein, Medea Benjaman etc jump on the Free Palestine bus are welcome signals
I would have exploded half way through his talk. I can’t take this shit anymore without wanting to pull out someones hair. I am sick and tired of it all and I cannot find the comfort and hope that I used to upon coming to Mondoweiss. I thought maybe things were changing. They are not.
Day in, day out, its the same story.
Bronner talks so confidently- even though he speaks lies- because he belongs to a people of who have conquered. And you know personally, my spirit may have just been conquered too–I don’t know. I feel defeated. It’s hard to accept and its painful beyond words.
Oh I’m sure my defeated spirit and my pathetic feelings are music to Zionists ears. Enjoy it Julian, enjoy it Witty, enjoy it Wondering Jew.
Witty rages at Phil. But I’m beyond that point. I have no one to rage at. And that’s how hundreds and thousands of Palestinians feel. Oh God, what a pathetic existence.
Saleema,
A poem by Mazin Qumsiyeh:
Thanks, Shmuel.
Saleema, I don’t know what to say that could help you. I feel the same things as well. I have no family in the ME. I have known 1 Muslim (Pakistani) my entire life, and it was in high school (7 years ago). But I feel solidarity w/ the Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans. All those people under the boot of imperialism and colonialism (direct and indirect).
There are a lot of people who go to the Palestinian solidarity rallies from diverse backgrounds. The plight of the Palestinians isn’t just a tragedy for them.
The level of injustice and the extent to which Zionists can get away with the most despicable crimes is saddening and infuriating. However, know that people are with you and the movement can only get stronger.
‘Brand Israel’ has failed. They can’t hide their true behavior for long. Keep your hopes up and keep speaking out. Keep organizing.
I know I don’t have to tell you any of this stuff. I just want to let you know, you’re not alone in how you feel and a lot of people who’ve read about this conflict have felt those things too, as much as they can as ‘outsiders’.
Pingback: War in Context - The world according to Bronner is a Jewish one
Pingback: ‘NYT’ has had intimate connections to the Jewish state
Saleema, as Cliff said, please, know that you are not alone. Cliff is a young man, he works for your cause; take hope from that. (Adam just had twins! Think of that: two new souls who will be raised in an atmosphere seeking just peace!) Others of us are not so young; we have time and experience to contribute to support for a re-invigoration of American values of honesty and fair dealing, which will, perforce, support the cause of justice for Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghanis, Iranians. Please, dear one, please know you are not alone.
Shmuel, Cliff- thank you.
Pingback: The ‘Times’ now owes it to its readers to assign an Arab-American reporter to Jerusalem
Pingback: Ethan Bronner’s Kid in the IDF: Fallout | Jewbonics
Pingback: Should you be responsible for actions of your family? « BBC World Have Your Say