The New York Times published a remarkable discussion yesterday. Alongside an article about Israel canceling a plan to segregate buses going to the West Bank so as to keep Palestinians off settlers’ buses, it published readers’ comments, and in both the editors’ selection and the readers’ selection, the comments were running against Israel.
In fact, the readers’ picks were almost completely one-sided. Here are some of them:
The plan to segregate buses is just one dramatic example of the dynamic at the heart of Israeli society. Israel in its entirety — not just Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem — is an apartheid state. — Tim Joseph of Columbus, Ohio.
Those separate roads for Israeli settlers and Palestinians show what Israel has become. Even in the worst days of the Jim Crow South in the United States, there weren’t separate roads for blacks and whites. — Scrim1, Bowie, Maryland.
As a Jew, I find this action appalling and allows people to question why the persecuted have become the persecutors.
The only way Israel can be reigned in is by the U.S. to stop its funding and halt the use of the veto at the UN. — littleninja2356, UKWhile it is definitely a very small step in the right direction, Israel has a very long way to go if it ever wishes to be a true democracy. There remain Jewish roads only, millions of CAGED Palestinians who cannot move about freely or have the same rights that Jewish Israeli’s have. –Pickwick45, Endicott, NY
Rosa Parks turning in her grave. Why must U.S. taxpayers be forced, without any vote on the matter, to support Netanyahu’s right-wing regression to pre-Enlightenment values? — Nelson Alexander, NY.
And this in a country fully supported by the USA? — James McEntire, Chapel Hill, NC
The Israeli’s need to take a good, hard look at themselves if a policy like this could be introduced in 2015. They will never find peace going in this direction. — swm, Providence
That this is happening with my tax dollars infuriates me. The only reason they scrapped the “pilot” program (nothing pilot about it actually; see South Africa, Jim Crowe USA) was because of international disgust. — C, Brooklyn
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. MLK Jr — Lucian Roosevelt, Barcelona
Sounds incredibly racist. however since they already have highways which prohibit cars w palestinian license plates, it is no surprise. it is so sad. and our tax dollars subsidize this. — Zieanna B., Wilmington, NC
And there you have it, that beacon of democracy in the Middle East, with segregated transport, stratified citizens and desirable/undesirable voters! — NM, NY
You have to go very deep in the Readers’ favorite comments to get one that dismisses the apartheid analogy. Though several in the Editors’ picks do that work.
The comment section reflects a change in Israel’s image in the west. Hasbara is being overwhelmed. Despite the Times editors rigging the comments in their selection column, there is a change in the popular mood.
I believe this change has taken place in the last year or two, but it’s epitomized here. The momentum has shifted. More and more people, despite mainstream media bias, are becoming more and more aware. Bear in mind, it isn’t entirely a casual thing to comment at the Times. These writers are energetic, and they are literate.
Ilan Pappe said as much about educated opinion in a recent interview:
The new attitude toward Israel is not marginal or esoteric. You suddenly encounter it everywhere – among people who are in the know, among people who have only partial information, and – it sounds simplistic – but almost any decent person you meet in the West has a clear view of Israel/Palestine with varying degrees of knowledge or commitment. There is a sense of a significant shift.
Israel and its friends must regard this trend with great concern.
Despite the Times editors rigging the comments in their selection column
Nothing exposes the Times editors’ biases more clearly than comparing Readers’ Picks and Editors’ Picks. The biases become glaring and impossible not to see. I am surprised the editors put themselves in this situation.
The real breakthough may be that the Times chooses to print reader comments about Israeli racism and US taxpayer dollars to support it.
It’s funny because often journalists are much more liberal than their readership base(at least among MSM publications, even liberal-oriented ones like the NYT). And you often see that reflected in the comment section (which is why so many journalists don’t like it, because it reminds them that their hive isn’t always so representative of American discourse).
This is why it’s so funny and amusing seeing the opposite trend for once, that the Times is far more reactionary than their readership base and their desperation in their “Editor’s picks” vs the people’s choices.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they outright banned comments on I/P articles soon. They don’t want to see them, and be reminded just how reactionary they are.
Good analysis. If the NYT prints reader comments (I gather in the print edition), even if they choose more “balance” for their own “picks”, it means that (while they have not given up championing Israel, hence the differently slanted NYT “picks”) they are ready to show, in print, what is actually going on in the general perceptions.
They’ve dipped a toe in the, to them, freezing waters of truth-telling, Took long enough.
Anyone want to start a pool on the day the NYT’s “news” pieces from Jerusalem include quotes from Palestinians as of equal weight with quotes from Israeli Jews and citations of international law as if it were a norm rather than an ancient and obsolete text, an inexplicable and bizarre hobby-horse of a few misguided souls.
This is a good sign of the direction in which public opinion is heading.I suspect ordinary Americans feel less and less prohibited in stating their opposition to Israel,s brutality.Once the dam breaks , there will be no amount of hasbara that will stop the torrent from washing Zionism out of existence.
None to soon.Read Obama,s comments to J, Goldberg which I provided a link to on the Segregated buses thread. There is also an article on Haaretz which points out the contradictions in the makeup of Nietanyahu,s cabinet.In one instance there is a minister for Senior citizens who also is minister for Young people.
This government will not last into 2016.