Maybe The New York Times learned something by going to Ariel on the settlers' red carpet? Its editorial today strikes a new, important tone: it blames Netanyahu for the deadlock in the Middle East and says that the Palestinians and the international community are justly running out of patience. No mention of the Israel lobby; but a description of the backbends it produces in American leaders:
President Obama made a very generous — too generous, we believe — offer to Israel, to get Mr. Netanyahu to extend the moratorium. It included additional security guarantees and more fighter planes, missile defense, satellites. Mr. Netanyahu still refused, insisting that the hard-line members of his coalition would never go along. He then added to the controversy by proposing that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
It's taken forever, and is likely too late for the two-state-solution, but this is an important marker. With the Times for cover, will the PEP opinion makers (like Chris Matthews and E.J. Dionne, etc.) and those who have been silent ONLY on this issue (Frank Rich) dare to take the cue?
The old grey slut finally catches a clue from Mondoweiss? Well, yes and no.
In the lead sentence of the second ‘graph, we find the Lobby’s obligatory, formulaic incantation: Both sides are at fault. As has been so exhaustively demonstrated in posts at Mondoweiss, there is no equivalence between the two sides. When it comes to the settlements issue, Israel is illegally constructing settlements on Palestinian land; the Palestinians are not illegally settling Israeli land. One side is at fault.
Similarly, after criticizing Obama’s shameful attempted bribe to Netanyahu as ‘too generous,’ the Times advocates several paragraphs later that ‘Mr. Netanyahu should accept Mr. Obama’s offer.’
Such incoherent, mushmouthed pretzel logic is too evasive to be reasoned with. It’s background noise, Kultursmog, textual spam to fill up an empty news hole on the Op-Ed page.
By the time the Old Grey Lady finally catches a clue, we’ll be shoveling dirt clods on her pauper’s grave. And I’ll be laughing and high-fiving: Hey, ho, the witch is dead. The wicked witch is dead!
The Revolution will not be reported in the New York Times.
Timing is everything. If this article has any meaning at all in terms of timing (which only an avalanche of similar and better articles at NYT and elsewhere can reveal) it means THAT THE DAY IS AT HAND. PRESIDENT OBAMA MUST ACT NOW (November 3, 2010) or not at all. There is no time for coalition building and coalition-building cannot be done in secret. We are in “emperor’s new clothes” territory, as all Phil’s readers know, but as Obama and NYT and others must reveal if there is to be change.
Quakers and others speak of “speaking truth to power.” This is the moment for President Obama (with help from NYT) to speak truth to the American people and to THE LOBBY and its captives (the Congress). I don’t expect it to happen.
‘Quakers and others speak of “speaking truth to power.” ‘
Power already knows the truth.
Power doesn’t care.
Not being a regular (or even irregular) NYT reader I don’t know if this is the first times it has essentially condemned the settlements and thus if it’s not just the “tone” that’s new as Phil puts it.
If so however that seems to me significant, even if it’s just seen as enough of a concession to common-sense to keep the Times’ staunch defense of Israel from seeming too ridiculous to even mention. (Much less its fairness.)
If so or even if not however the logic from what the Times’ has said kicks in and its ramifications are huge given the number of now-admittedly “illegal” settlements are there and the number of therefore illegal settlers that are there too. Even if one accepts the Times’, that is, well then the next point is … they gotta go, or Israel has gotta give a helluva lot to keep any of ‘em.
“One who says A must say B,” is the way the old saw goes, so when even the Times is saying A ….
At the very least seems to me the neo-cons have gotta feel that the rock they’ve been standing on has just lost a chip or so. And erosion can be a bitch to fight; very tough to recover what’s been washed away….
The NYT regularly condemns the settlements. So does Tom Friedman. That by itself doesn’t mean much. Usually they go on to do what Jim Haygood complains about above–put the blame on both sides and then proceed to put more of the blame on the Palestinians.
What’s mildly significant here is that the NYT is putting most of the blame on the Israeli side–it means that for some liberal Zionists in the US, Netanyahu is overplaying his hand. Usually Israeli leaders are smart enough to keep people like the NYT editorialists in their camp by making “generous” offers that seem more generous to Israel and its fan club than to anyone else. But Netanyahu is just too arrogant to play the game and it has the NYT editors and like-minded people exasperated. Whether that leads to anything truly significant is another question.
If NYT were truly American in heart and soul, it would have said that the offer was a bribe for political purpose and the nature and magnitude of the bribery has no precedent in international relations and this has the potential of exerting prolonged negative effects on US and on any adversary of Israel who may or may not be an adversary of US.
I left a comment there, signed ‘Gell’ (got cut off somehow). I said “Israel is a rogue nation. I pity those Israelis of goodwill who are trapped in it.”
Unbelievably, the NYT moderators published it. Let’s see how many folks out there recommend it today…
During the last few days I have come to suspect that Netanyahu has walked into a trap that will close on November 3rd and the result may not be good for the Zionists. It has been pretty obvious for the past several weeks that the Republicans are likely to win back control of the House and maybe even the Senate and that when that happens there will be nothing that Obama can do domestically, so, he will have a minimum of two years and maybe even four years when he can focus on foreign policy and if I remember the US Constitution correctly while the Senate has to ratify any treaties and approve any ambassadors, the rest of foreign policy is reserved to the President so a Republican obstructionist majority in either house is really of no use to Netanyahu whatsoever.
One might think that in editorializing, a U.S. newspaper would concern itself primarily with U.S. policy. Thus, after criticizing Obama’s offer of new U.S. security guarantees to Netanyahu as ‘too generous,’ the logical segue would be advocacy as to how the U.S. should regroup.
Instead, in a rhetorical sleight-of-hand worthy of a three-card monte dealer, the Times suddenly shifts sides, advising Netanyahu to accept O’Bummer’s overly generous offer.
This is the tell, the giveaway: like Dennis Ross, the Times is serving as Israel’s lawyer.
A coöpted press is essential in maintaining absurdities of our managed democracy such as the ‘Israel right or wrong’ mantra reflexively recited by nearly every KongressKlown, despite Israel being nothing but a money sink and a nightmarish diplomatic liability for the United States.
Reclaiming our country means stripping dual-loyalty emigré rags like the Times of its pretension of being an objective ‘newspaper of record,’ when it’s in fact a PR Wire for a foreign enemy.
“Both sides are at fault” is the kind of language the Great Powers used in advance of their much heralded Munich Pact.
Get a load of the comments to this article at the NYT website. Along with the usual hasbara talking points there’s a lot of astute more independent thought there to make the NYT that much more aware the times, they are a-changin.’
Phil,
The NYT article is mere damage control.
According to the NY Times, it’s Netanyahu and his coalition who are to blame, you see.
I hope that Phil’s read on this ed is correct. But the sum of NYTimes articles and editorials over the last 10 years has been tilted towards allowing Israel to colonize more WB land. It has a twisted route however. As is noted above they continuously play the ‘on the one hand but on the other hand’ game leaving casual observers with the impression of “balance”. But the bottom line is this positioning has left Israel with more and more of WB land each year. The owners of the NYTimes cannot be ignorant of this nor is it likely that they do not see this is the result of deliberate policy of Israel independent of which party controls the government. They must be complicit in the fraud. Today we are seeing another ‘on the one hand’ ploy.
But it would be great if I was wrong about this.
RE: “He [Netanyahu] then added to the controversy by proposing that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.” – NYT
MY COMMENT: Perhaps the Palestinians should agree to meet Netanyahu halfway and recognize Israel as a Jewish and undemocratic state!
Here’s a particularly egregious example of NYT lies. The newspaper habitually lowballs estimates of attendance at antiwar demonstrations which irk its CIA masters, such as the big NYC protests in February 2003.
But when it comes to partisan politics, the Times flops down like a doormat and lets the sponsors supply their own attendance estimates. In today’s article teasingly headlined ‘At Rally — Thousands — Billions? — Respond,’ the lede paragraph in its entirety reads:
Six billion is 85% of the planet’s population. The reader expecting an explanation of this bizarre jest finds nothing more until the penultimate paragraph, which offers this elaboration:
link to nytimes.com
‘Newspaper of record’? You’ve gotta be jokin’ me! Plenty of campus newspapers offer more serious content than the Times’ preposterous parody of advocacy journalism.
Predictably, attendance at protests against the Israeli occupation will be described as ‘dozens,’ if the story makes it through the Times’ ideological censors at all.
Don’t believe the MSM …
Good catch Jim, even with Steward they will lie.
The take from Ha’aretz: link to haaretz.com
The February 22, 1948 NYT editorial and Op-ed pieces said the same thing. Different characters. Same shit now as 62.5 years ago. Look them up for free if you have a Times subscription, otherwise you have to pay for them. (The UN delegation was at Lake Success NY, and an argument was being made to have the UN send in international forces to back up international law; the Brits were not pushing for a separate Jewish state in Palestine; they said they would go along with any UN decision.) Then it was the generalized Arabs blocking peace.
Very instructive. .