Today’s New York Times has a front-page article by Jodi Rudoren on recent Palestinian attacks on Israelis, titled “Leaderless Palestinian Youth, Inspired by Social Media, Drive Rise in Violence in Israel” that quotes three Israeli experts and ascribes the attacks to social media. The article refers to the “occupied West Bank” once in passing but has nothing to say about the long history of Palestinian resistance to occupation and colonization. That omission is a pattern in the New York Times coverage of the conflict. Patrick Connors prepared the following analysis of the previous 27 articles yesterday. –Ed.
In the last 27 articles by Jodi Rudoren, Isabel Kershner and Diaa Hadid dating back to September 10 (links to articles pasted below*) there is almost no mention of Israeli military occupation, or of expanding Israeli control and settlements throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem, of Israel’s wall and checkpoints isolating East Jerusalem or of increasing poverty in East Jerusalem. These 27 articles include two on Gaza (that do mention poverty in Gaza) and two on Netanyahu and Abbas’ species at the UN. I did not include Jodi’s single article on the Golan Heights.
I bolded all mentions of occupation, occupied or occupying and pasted them below with the article links. There were 27 total mentions of occupied or occupation in the 27 articles, and fourteen of those 27 are simply the NYT stock phrase “occupied West Bank”, with no mention even of who is doing the occupying. The Times does not call East Jerusalem occupied and only once quotes anyone, Abbas, saying East Jerusalem, is occupied. The other twelve uses of occupied or occupation are from very brief quotes of Palestinians.
I also copied and pasted mentions of the causes of tension and violence. Many of the 27 articles have focused or touched on tensions in East Jerusalem, yet only one article provides even a minimal amount of context to Israel’s systematic takeover of East Jerusalem, a 9/10 article (number 27.) In the rest, the Times continually repeats stock phrases along lines that would imply that there is simply a religious conflict over control of the Haram Al Sharif, like this one: “The latest violence comes after weeks of escalating tensions and confrontations around the contested Old City compound that houses Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Palestinian leaders, including Mr. Abbas, have accused Israel of plotting to divide the site, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.”
The larger context in which this falls – Israel’s expanding control over East Jerusalem as a whole, growing settlements, the almost total isolation of much of East Jerusalem from the West Bank by the wall and checkpoints, and growing Palestinian poverty in East Jerusalem – is almost never mentioned. Thus the articles are almost devoid of any context of what Palestinians are experiencing in East Jerusalem, and readers are likely left with the sense that there is simply a conflict over holy sites.
As noted, the only comments on the context in East Jerusalem, beyond conflict over Haram Al Sharif, are in a September 10 Diaa Hadid article (excerpt directly below), but they are still minimal:
In recent years, Palestinians have come to see the compound as their last real institution in East Jerusalem, their hoped-for capital of a future state.
The brewing tensions at the holy site reflect broader problems throughout Jerusalem, where the Israeli police on Wednesday announced there had been a 53 percent increase in stone-throwing episodes in 2014 from the year before.
Palestinians and their advocates say the tensions reflect increasing discrimination against them in East Jerusalem, where residents struggle to obtain permission to build homes and have markedly worse educational services and infrastructure than the relatively prosperous Jewish-dominated areas of the city.
Amira Hass is of course not the only person writing on these issues, but no New York Times article provides any of this kind of broader context as background to the current situation in East Jerusalem:
Last 27 articles, with excerpts including mentions of occupation and causes of conflict
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, sent the Security Council an urgent letter on Monday night listing numerous cases in which Israeli forces fatally shot attackers, as well as people protesting against Israel’s occupation in the West Bank and rushing toward the fence that separates Israel from the Gaza Strip.
but violence has also struck in Kiryat Arba, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank;
Protests continued in several friction points across the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, and along the border fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel, as part of a declared “day of rage.”
So far this month, four Israelis have been killed in Palestinian gun and knife attacks in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and several more have been wounded.
Palestinian anger has been focused recently on the Old City of Jerusalem and a contested site there that is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, where the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock now stand. Palestinian officials, including Mr. Abbas, have accused Israel of plotting to divide the compound.
…
Hatem Abdul Qader, an official of Mr. Abbas’s mainstream Fatah party in Jerusalem, told the official Palestinian radio station, “Even if he summons NATO, the issue is that we are resisting occupation.”
The deadly clash came as the roiling violence and unrest of the past week continued across Israel and the occupied West Bank; ….
He also said the escalation “looks bad for Israel’s image in the world — you see Palestinian protesters against an occupying army,” especially as Mr. Netanyahu prepares to meet with President Obama in a few weeks to repair their tattered relations.
An apparently uncoordinated series of attacks by Palestinians on Israelis, mostly with knives, over the past week, have been accompanied by swelling protests in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israeli towns with large populations of Arab citizens….
It’s to liberate Al Aqsa,” Firas said, referring to the mosque at the heart of the Old City compound in Jerusalem that Palestinians fear Israel wants to divide. “And it’s for the martyrs. They are taking our lands and our holy sites, and as a Palestinian, I should defend my land.”…
“I remember that Yasir Arafat said the pen of a writer, the brush of a painter, the microphone of a professor are all ways of resisting the occupation,” Mr. Ahmad said of the first Palestinian president.
The rallying cry defining the latest surge in Palestinian protests and the rationale given by some of the recent attackers is the struggle over the Old City site revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary…
But Muslim leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, have insisted that Israel plans to divide the compound. Many Palestinians point to recent visits by Uri Ariel, Mr. Netanyahu’s agriculture minister, who has joined fringe groups in calling for a new Jewish temple to be built there….
Isaac Herzog, leader of the opposition in Parliament, called for a more intensive security crackdown, including a “complete closure” imposed on the occupied West Bank.
….
The mount is also the holiest site in Judaism, and has drawn growing numbers of Jewish visitors in recent years, including many who agitate for the right to pray freely at the site, and a far smaller number who want to take full control of it and replace the iconic Dome of the Rock with a new temple.
Violent clashes continued Wednesday between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank.
Since the crackdown began, thousands of Palestinians have been thrown out of work, contributing to soaring poverty in the territory. Already long power cuts have gotten worse, as tunnels supplying one million liters (about 260,000 gallons) of diesel each day have been shut down. Thousands of tons of merchandise no longer get in.
Leaders including President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority have accused Israel of trying to divide the contested compound, home of Al Aqsa Mosque, or change the status quo prohibiting non-Muslim prayer…
The violence continued throughout the day, with clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank after Israel demolished two East Jerusalem homes of Palestinians who carried out deadly attacks last year….
What is happening in the street is only going to aggravate the occupation and bring about negative consequences.”
Mr. Alon was the second of four Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since Thursday, when Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish couple near a settlement in the occupied West Bank, leaving their young children orphans.
“I guess that is what we get for being Palestinian and under occupation. I am just very lucky and thankful to God that the bullet didn’t hit me instead.”
The latest violence comes after weeks of escalating tensions and confrontations around the contested Old City compound that houses Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Palestinian leaders, including Mr. Abbas, have accused Israel of plotting to divide the site, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
….
Ashrawi: She added, however, that “Palestine, under Israel’s belligerent occupation, has been subject to the systematic and escalating violence of the occupation, whether in the form of settler-terrorism or at the hands of the Israeli military using live ammunition.”
The grisly attack came as the Israeli Army announced that it had arrested Palestinian suspects in connection with the drive-by shooting Thursday night of an Israeli couple in front of their four children as they drove between settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Another uncle, Mahmoud Arian, said Mr. Halabi was not affiliated with any political movement but had been deeply aggrieved by the Israeli forces’ recent fatal shooting of a close friend who had been a member of the Islamic Jihad organization.
In response to the attack, Islamic Jihad said in a statement: “We bless this operation in Jerusalem and confirm that Israel is paying the price of its aggressive occupation and the resistance will continue and increase.”
Hussam Badran, a spokesman for Hamas, said the attack “confirms that the Palestinians would not surrender” to Israeli actions at the holy sites and throughout Jerusalem.
….
The pair of deadly attacks on Israelis followed weeks of intense clashes at the Old City site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Mr. Abbas in his United Nations speech accused Israel of trying to change the status quo at the site, which bars non-Muslim prayer, or to divide it; Mr. Netanyahu denied this in his own speech, and accused Mr. Abbas of inciting the violence.
The Henkins were shot dead, apparently by Palestinian gunmen, in the occupied West Bank the night before, and their four children are now among the orphans Ms. Henkin had tried to help. …
Clashes between Muslims and Jews flared in recent weeks at the contested Jerusalem holy site known as the Temple Mount to Jews and as Al Aqsa, or the Noble Sanctuary, to Muslims. The violence simmered over the summer as the political situation between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority remained stagnant.
He added, “The blood of Zionist settlers is not more valuable than the blood of Dawabsheh and Hashlamoun,” referring to the Palestinian victims of an arson attack in July in the West Bank village of Duma and to an 18-year-old woman fatally shot by Israeli soldiers in Hebron last month.
While a relative calm has prevailed in the West Bank in recent years, there have been periodic attacks against Israelis on the roads.
Palestinians fatally shot Malakhi Rosenfeld, 26, in June as he returned home from a basketball game with friends. Two weeks earlier, another Israeli, Danny Gonen, 25, was killed after visiting a West Bank spring. And two weeks ago, Alexander Levlovich, 64, died after Palestinians pelted his car with stones in East Jerusalem, causing him to crash.
Mr. Netanyahu exhorted his Palestinian counterpart to “stop spreading lies about Israel’s intentions on the Temple Mount,” the contested holy site in Jerusalem called the Noble Sanctuary by Muslims. Mr. Abbas on Wednesday accused Israel of trying to divide or destroy the site.
Gabriel Helou, whose Twitter profile identifies him as a lawyer specializing on the occupied Palestinian territory, wrote: “The violation of international law has also been perfected by consecutive Israeli governments.”
In his annual General Assembly speech, Mr. Abbas accused Israel of having systematically violated these pacts, which date back two decades and outline security, economic and other arrangements in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel during and after the 1967 war.
The agreements formed the basis for governing much of daily life in the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is based.
Therefore, he said, “we cannot continue to be bound by these signed agreements with Israel and Israel must assume fully all its responsibility as an occupying power.”
Mr. Netanyahu said the new measures would apply “to all citizens and residents of Israel” — a reference that includes the Palestinians of East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after the 1967 war in a move that has never been internationally recognized. Most East Jerusalem Palestinians have not applied for Israeli citizenship but do hold permanent residency status.
East Jerusalem has erupted in waves of violence and confrontations with Israeli security forces over the last 15 months, beginning with the kidnapping and killing of a Palestinian youth, Muhammad Abu Khdeir, 16, by Jewish extremists who were acting to avenge the kidnapping and killing of three Jewish youths by Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Israeli authorities. Tensions over a contested Jerusalem holy site have also flared into repeated bouts of violence, including in recent weeks.
….
But B’tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, said that in the West Bank, which is under Israeli military rule, the use of the rifles was not likely to “have the result desired by the government.”
In some ways the new regulations blur the distinction Israel has always made between the occupied West Bank, where rights groups frequently accuse Israel of using excessive force, and annexed East Jerusalem, which Israel claims as part of its sovereign capital.
The deaths occurred amid heightened tensions as the region prepared for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, and Eid al-Adha, a Muslim feast, which both started on Tuesday at sundown. After days of violence around Jerusalem that began with clashes at a contested holy site in the Old City last week during the Jewish New Year, the Israeli authorities were out in force and shut the crossings between the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, called Pope Francis to brief him on the “ongoing Israeli aggression in occupied East Jerusalem, and particularly against Al Aqsa Mosque.” …..
Tensions have simmered on and off for more than a year over the sacred plateau that is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, the third holiest site in Islam. The latest bout of violence in the compound began Sunday and continued over three days.
….
A recent push by some nationalist religious Jews, including politicians in Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition, for more access and prayer rights has fueled Palestinian fears that Israel secretly intends to change the status quo and divide the site — an assertion that Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly and vehemently denied.
The clashes have been prompted partly by Palestinian fears that Jews were visiting the compound as part of an Israeli plan to assert sovereignty over the site or to divide it. Non-Muslim prayer is banned at the site, and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly said he has no intention of changing that, most recently on Tuesday evening.
But Palestinians have grown more fearful of Israeli intentions in recent weeks, after Israel outlawed an organization of Muslim women who shout at Jewish visitors at the holy site. The government accused the organization, along with an affiliated group of men, of inciting violence. Palestinians say they are defending the sanctity of the site.
- http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/15/world/middleeast/israel-west-bank-violence.html
The man was identified in local news reports as Alexander Levlovich, 64. His death was reported as the police and Palestinian youths clashed for a second day at a contested holy site in Jerusalem, amid tensions over increased visits by Jews for Rosh Hashana.
…
Israeli security forces have increasingly grappled with rock-throwing, particularly along a highway in the occupied West Bank that is mostly used by Jewish settlers and on roads leading to Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem.
…
The tensions that led to the fighting are a product, at least in part, of growing Palestinian fears that Jews are visiting the Temple Mount as part of an Israeli plan to assert sovereignty over the site or to divide it.
….
This site is in the Old City of Jerusalem, in territory Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 war and then annexed in a move that has not been internationally recognized.
Cuts in electricity are just one of many hardships that Palestinians have endured in recent years, including unrelenting poverty and unemployment amid virtual imprisonment in the coastal strip because of restrictions by neighboring Egypt and Israel.
And there were three wars with Israel….
Israel also still controls passage over its border with Gaza as well as exports and imports. Egypt has largely shut down its border crossing as well as the hundreds of tunnels that once crisscrossed the border and were used to bring goods into Gaza that Israel had tightly restricted.
Saeb Erekat, the secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, denounced the police action and told the official Palestinian Authority radio that Israel had started carrying out “an old plan” to divide the compound — an assertion that is vehemently denied by Israel.
….
This site is in Jerusalem’s Old City, in territory Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 war and then annexed in a move that has not been internationally recognized. The compound has a special status: It is administered by the Islamic Waqf trust, under Jordanian custodianship, but Israel controls security. Tensions over the site have mounted over the last year and have often resulted in violence.
Israel maintains a ban on non-Muslim prayer at the site. But some nationalist Jewish activists have been agitating for increased access and prayer rights there, fanning Muslim fears that Israel intends to split the compound or change its status.
Israel captured the Old City from Jordan in the 1967 war, but returned administrative oversight of the compound to Jordan. Israel maintains security and has barred non-Muslims from praying there, but there has been a push by some religious Jews and ultranationalist politicians to defy the ban.
…..
The Palestinian groups were formed by the Northern Islamic Movement, a religiously conservative organization based in Israel, amid growing fears among Palestinians that Jews are visiting the Temple Mount as part of an Israeli plan to assert sovereignty over the site or divide it.
…..
In recent years, Palestinians have come to see the compound as their last real institution in East Jerusalem, their hoped-for capital of a future state.
The brewing tensions at the holy site reflect broader problems throughout Jerusalem, where the Israeli police on Wednesday announced there had been a 53 percent increase in stone-throwing episodes in 2014 from the year before.
Palestinians and their advocates say the tensions reflect increasing discrimination against them in East Jerusalem, where residents struggle to obtain permission to build homes and have markedly worse educational services and infrastructure than the relatively prosperous Jewish-dominated areas of the city.
*Note to reader: Different ways of doing online searches for NYT articles pull up up different articles. This list of articles is not completely comprehensive, but it is representative of NYT coverage tendencies.
“The paper of record”–who’s, Bibi’s international edition?
It is easy to see why so many of the readers of the nyt are so brainwashed .They are fed this propaganda almost daily by the the zionist puppets , rudoren and kershner.
What is really galling is that the nyt has now set it,s sights on brainwashing populations outside of New York , including those in foreign nations , as was the case a few days ago ,in the form of an article provided to The Irish Times .It was penned by Rick Gladstone.
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2015/10/hectored-archaeologists-location.
Israel is contracting out its propaganda program to the NYT and that makes that company complicit in the commission of War Crimes by Israel.Rudoren is part of that.She is a liar by omission.
Thanks for this thorough documentation of the New York Times’ relentless ommission of Israel’s massively unjust, illegal, barbaric cruelty.
A rabbi said that a Palestinian life is not worth a single Jewish fingernail. This Biblical belief in ethnic supremacism is WHY Palestinian deaths are considered not worth reporting. This core belief underlies all the desperate psychobabble “explanations” for Palestinian resistance.
This bigoted belief is gradually being exposed, as one after another of the Israeli arguments are demolished by people well-armed with facts. The traitors to the truth will go down with them.
Thank you Patrick. Just finished. Going to read again. Unless I missed it..how many Palestinians have been brutally killed by Israeli forces, West Bank thieves (not going to call them that folksy settlers term any longer)l during the same period of time that the Israeli’s were brutally murdered?
No excuses for the brutal murders on either side. However I believe that all of Israeli murders took place on internationally recognized Palestinian land
Hope folks are going to share this one far and wide.
I would love to see the NYT use the same language to describe Israel in the OPT as it does with Russia in the Crimea: sieze, storm, confiscate and occupy, rather than capture, disputed and settle.