From the category archives:

Israel/Palestine

More apartheid justice

by Bruce Wolman on February 9, 2010 · 5 comments

It may very well be that these settler teens were picked up with insufficient evidence. But, under similar circumstances would we see Arab youths freed from custody until investigations were complete? Hardly! Arab youths could just as easily be held in administrative detention with no charges against them.

{ 5 comments }

4 years after its public editor called for Ramallah-based correspondent, Times is still in W. J’lem

by Philip Weiss on February 9, 2010 · 47 comments

MJ Rosenberg lands on the Bronner story and says that the son’s decision reflects the family’s devotion to Israel, and puts a huge question under Bronner’s objectivity. He draws the most important lesson from the drama, a lesson that is very heartening indeed:

Suddenly the New York Times feels the need to deal with its critics who argue that an intense attachment to Israel obscures objective judgement on the Middle East.

This is new. Until very recently the assumption was that the Israeli position was, by definition, the neutral, disinterested position.

[read the full article…]

{ 47 comments }

Defending Bronner’s conflict, the Times has proved too much

by Anonymous9 February 2010

The arguments by Keller, Goldberg, Avishai, etc. in defense of retaining Ethan Bronner at his post in spite of the conspicuous conflict of interest, show how hard it is for us to judge Israel by the standard we apply to other countries.The sympathy/kinship/affinity runs too deep. Imagine a Times reporter on the Zapatista rebellion of [...]

12 comments

Remember, the Times won a Pulitzer for being on the right side (unh– our side) of Hiroshima radiation sickness

by Peter Voskamp9 February 2010

The controversy about Ethan Bronner and his son goes deeper than the New York Times’ coverage of the Middle East.
I accept the argument that Bronner’s reporting is likely to be affected by those he lives and works with on a daily basis and by his son’s  enlistment in the IDF.
But isn’t this the problem at [...]

9 comments

Steve Walt feels vindicated by Blair confession (as well he should)

by Philip Weiss9 February 2010

Steve Walt has a great post following the news from Tony Blair that when he was planning the Iraq war disaster with George Bush they consulted the Israelis, and that Israeli security was a consideration. Walt feels vindicated on the most controversial claim of his book, that the Israel lobby pushed the Iraq war. Here’s [...]

10 comments

Abunimah: Jews can report on Palestinians, but the other way ’round?

by Ali Abunimah8 February 2010

I have been of course following all the absurd defenses and excuse-making from Jeffrey Goldberg, Ron Kampeas, Andrew Sullivan, Joe Klein, etc for Ethan Bronner and the New York Times, as well as your recent comments. They insist that there is no bias in Bronner’s reporting and that his son’s service in the occupation army [...]

21 comments

Human Rights Groups Say Israel and Hamas Fail in Investigations

by Alex Kane8 February 2010

A chorus of statements from human rights organizations has determined that both Israel and Palestinian authorities have failed to conduct independent, impartial investigations into alleged war crimes committed during last year’s Israeli assault on Gaza.
The United Nations’ Goldstone report called on both sides to conduct independent investigations in accordance with international standards over the war [...]

59 comments

‘New York Times Fails to Disclose Possible Conflict of Interest’–ABC News

by Philip Weiss8 February 2010

Story itself is a rehash. But the headline is choice, and echoes the EI item that broke the kerfuffle.

3 comments

Goldberg is neo-segregationist

by Philip Weiss8 February 2010

Listen to Jeffrey Goldberg on the Ethan Bronner flap, saying his friend should of course stay in Jerusalem:

18 comments

Ahmed Moor wants to make aliyah!

by Ahmed Moor8 February 2010

Dear friends,
I’m finished with Beirut; I’m moving to Israel.
There is a remarkable philanthropic organization called Nefesh B’Nefesh seeking people just like me for “the first ever formal initiative to populate Israel’s northern region with English speaking Olim.”
My options are a little limited; I can only move to the Galilee or the Golan Heights to qualify [...]

105 comments

Bronner story keeps on ticking

by Philip Weiss8 February 2010

Gray lady has a thorn in her side. Bernard Avishai says (and I tend to agree) that Ethan Bronner shouldn’t be moved from Jerusalem just because his son joined the IDF. But Avishai then quotes Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn in a highminded (and dual-nationalized) struggle to overlook the real problem: his friend Bronner is [...]

10 comments

Disgusting English neocon suggests that brooding on Israel made Tony Judt sick

by Philip Weiss8 February 2010

Indomitable Tony Judt, stricken with ALS, has been publishing memoirs in the New York Review of Books, sparkling bits recovered from his youth about a great teacher, class at Cambridge, the Indianness of English food. My favorite of course involves my own conundrum, Jewish identity. Judt spent three summers as a youth on Israeli kibbutzim, [...]

13 comments

there I go, counting Jewish names again

by Philip Weiss7 February 2010

It is impossible to discuss the action of the Israel lobby in our foreign policy without acknowledging a sociological reality: Jews are big winners of the meritocracy, we are the richest group by religion in the U.S. I have to keep hitting this point because a, no one talks about it out of fear of [...]

29 comments

The ‘Times’ now owes it to its readers to assign an Arab-American reporter to Jerusalem

by Philip Weiss7 February 2010

The New York Times has published an exchange between its public editor Clark Hoyt, who says that Ethan Bronner should be taken off the Jerusalem beat (the outcome I thought would ensue when Bronner’s son entered the Israeli army and the fit hit the shan), and Bill Keller, the executive editor, who digs in his [...]

54 comments

← Previous Entries