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New ‘NYT’ correspondent embraces goal of ‘sensitively portray[ing] both sides of conflict’

Like other Times-watchers, I’ve been studying the new Jerusalem bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren, to discern her point of view. And here she seems to express her ideals in a piece about attending the Jerusalem Film Festival, in which she enthuses/grieves for both sides, and is moved by the “heartbreaking chronicle of the years-long Bilin struggle, ‘Five Broken Cameras.’” 

Rudoren’s credo as a reporter seems evident in the second paragraph of this excerpt:

Overall, 45,000 tickets were distributed for 315 screenings over 10 days (the Israeli movies filled 11,000 seats at 55 showings), and the crowd was striking for its lack of religious Jews — rare in the capital — or Arabs of any kind. ..

Like so many of the political actors here, most of the films seemed unable to sensitively portray both sides of the perpetual conflicts, or uninterested in doing so. Two centered on Arabs — “Good Garbage,” a documentary about Palestinians who make their living scavenging from a dump in Hebron, and “Sharqiya,” a feature about Bedouins whose homes in the Negev have been demolished — offer one-dimensional caricatures of settlers and Israeli officials. “Rock the Casbah,” a feature about an Army unit in Gaza in 1989, is slightly more nuanced: the Palestinian teenagers who terrorize soldiers, killing one by dropping a washing machine on him from a rooftop, are hopeless thugs, but a family whose home is commandeered is presented sympathetically.

I loved 5 Broken Cameras too. But it’s impossible to watch that film without understanding that one side has the power, the other doesn’t. The hero of the film, the noble spirit Bassem Abu Rahmah, is killed by occupying soldiers.

Sometimes the two sides to a conflict are grossly imbalanced, and the less-powerful side, having lost again and again, may justly make a claim to the world’s sympathy. 

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“Like other Times-watchers, I’ve been studying the new Jerusalem bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren, to discern her point of view…

She’d have a hard time not being an improvement over Ethan Bronner. Did he finally go away?

Oh good…“In mid-2012, he became the Times ‘s national legal affairs correspondent, based in New York.” Hopefully he can’t do as much harm there. The worst bit is that he seems to have genuinely conceived of what he was doing as ‘reporting.’

“I loved 5 Broken Cameras too. But it’s impossible to watch that film without understanding that one side has the power, the other doesn’t.” The deceased human rights activist Art Gish’s stance. Stand up on the side of those without the power…the ones with the bigger guns pointing at them.
http://mideastchristians.virtualactivism.net/articles/amongapples.htm Almost two years since he had his tractor accident.

Too bad about Ruderon. But to be expected. The false moral equivalency angle. Has she written much about the ongoing expansion of illegal settlements

sensitively portray both sides of the perpetual conflicts

This is a classic distortion.

I continue to think that Rudoren is a significant improvement over her predecessor, Ethan Bronner. But then she talks about “the Palestinian teenagers who terrorize soldiers, killing one by dropping a washing machine on him from a rooftop, are hopeless thugs, but a family whose home is commandeered is presented sympathetically.” Don’t you just hate it when Palestinian teenagers terrorize Israeli soldiers? After all, the IDF was in Gaza peacefully minding its own business when these kids (murderous hopeless thugs) come along with their washing machine and . . . And this is supposed to be counterbalanced by “sympathetically” portraying a Gaza family whose home is commandeered? How would anyone portray such a family unsympathetically?

No sentence better demonstrates the illogic in trying to find equivalence between the two sides. Rudoren may be the best the Times will allow, and that’s a step in the right direction, but she’s not someone MW readers would place on a pedestal.

I suspect the Times keeps Rudoren on a much shorter leash than the New Yorker’s publisher uses to keep Remnick under control. To hope that she will be not as bad is Bronner is only a hope at this stage.