“New York Times execs visit West Bank city
“Publisher, senior editors of influential American newspaper given tour of Ariel as part of Yesha Council PR campaign”
Those are Ynet’s headlines. NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and executive editor Bill Keller and other editors visited a West Bank settlement two days ago as guests of Yesha, a settlers’ organization…
I wonder–in good faith– what the Times brass is doing in the West Bank; are they going to report on it? Well, then–oh my, this is like visiting Selma with Bull Connor– why did they go at the behest of a group and leader, Dani Dayan, that have pushed for illegal colonization? Why not with Jeff Halper or some anti-settlement group?
Why not with the modern day Martin Luther Kings who are fighting Jim Crow and need oxygen to continue this noble battle? Dr. Rateb Abu Rahma who is trying to defend Bil’in from continuing encroachment? Or Dr. Mazim Qumsiyeh who has been jailed for trying to do the same in Walaje? Or why not with some of the Israelis who are leading an artistic boycott of the Ariel settlement?
Do these guys have a clue? No. Ynet:
New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and the influential daily’s executive editor Bill Keller visited the West Bank city of Ariel on Wednesday.
According to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, the American executives were given a tour of a number of settlements as part of a PR campaign launched by the Yesha Council.
During their 24-hour stay in Israel, Sulzberger, Keller, the editor of the New York Times’ editorial page and the paper’s foreign desk editor met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Palestinian counterpart Salam Fayyad. As part of their tour of the West Bank, Sulzberger and the editors visited the Barkan Industrial Park, which is an important source of employment for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Following a meeting with Yesha Council chairman Danny Dayan, the New York Times executives continued to the Ariel University Center of Samaria, where Chancellor Yigal Cohen-Orgad spoke to them about the Arab students who are enrolled in the institution. Some 160 opinion leaders from all over the world have visited the West Bank over the past six months.
