As you can see at the top of our site today, Benjamin Netanyahu is attempting to create a governing coalition in Israel by awarding the position of Justice Minister to Ayelet Shaked, a rightwing member of Knesset who has made genocidal statements against Palestinians. Shaked wrote on Facebook last July after Palestinian militants kidnaped and killed three Israeli teens:
This is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people… an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.
These comments have not yet made the New York Times. Today, NYT Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren reports on Netanyahu’s struggles to form a coalition and she leaves Shaked till the 11th paragraph, and then she whitewashes Shaked’s record.
[Naftali] Bennett, a modern-Orthodox former technology entrepreneur who advocates expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and annexing most of it into Israel, was already in line to become education minister. After [Avigdor] Lieberman’s departure, he insisted that Ayelet Shaked serve as justice minister. Ms. Shaked is an outspoken hawk on the Palestinian issue who has described African asylum-seekers as a threat to Israel’s Jewish character and pressed for a “nationality bill” that critics say would disenfranchise Arab citizens.
An outspoken hawk? Shaked said Israel was at war with all Palestinians, including the elderly.
Last week speaking on National Public Radio, Rudoren also played down the rightwing element of Israeli society saying that only “a small strain” wants to annex the West Bank: “there’s also a strain– I think a small strain– that just basically believes that the whole river to the sea should be in Israeli or Jewish hands.”
Ayelet Shaked, who is part of that supposedly “small strain,” may well become the number one law enforcement officer in the entire country.
Rudoren or maybe her editors are still smarting over the fact that Netanyahu refused to grant her an interview during and after the election campaign that he won two months ago. Maybe this effort to cover up Shaked’s pro-genocidal views is an audition for an interview with the prime minister.
Maybe Rudoren shares Shaked’s views.
Maybe Rudoren, Shaked, and Glick are members of the same clubs.
Anyway, I revisited this great article by Max Blumenthal the other day:
“Candid video reveals NYT bureau chief Jodi Rudoren’s Zionist bubble
In early July, New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren found herself under withering scrutiny for uncritically quoting slanderous and later discredited comments by Israeli police spokesperson Mickey Rosenfeld justifying the brutal beating of fifteen-year-old Tariq Abukhdeir. Rudoren took to Facebook to lash out at critics who accused her of “practicing stenography,” attacking them as “anti-Israel activists.”
The rhetoric she used to characterize supporters of Palestinian rights echoed that of pro-Israel lobbyists like Anti-Defamation League (ADL) National Director Abraham Foxman, who has produced annual blacklists of Palestine solidarity activists and demonized critics of Israeli human rights abuses as anti-Semites.
Incidentally, Rudoren enjoys a cozy, off-the-record relationship with Foxman that has not been divulged until now. …
…Alluding to an article by Michael Brown for The Electronic Intifada, criticizing the Jerusalem bureau’s insular culture, Okrent wrote, “Some advocates of the Palestinian cause call this ‘structural geographic bias.’”
Okrent concluded that Brown was essentially right: the paper’s coverage had been badly compromised by the limited political and cultural horizons of its Jerusalem staff. He went on to recommend that the Times add correspondents based in Ramallah and Gaza to balance the Jerusalem bureau’s Jewish Israeli perspective with a view from within Palestinian society.
That never happened. Instead, the Times hired Rudoren to retrench its presence in the ethnically-cleansed and exclusively Jewish world of West Jerusalem, settling her on grounds that represent the ongoing legacy of Palestinian dispossession.
As Israel drives those Palestinians out of sight, the Rudorens appear to have placed them comfortably out of mind.”
Worth a read: http://electronicintifada.net/content/candid-video-reveals-nyt-bureau-chief-jodi-rudorens-zionist-bubble/13685
Thanks James.
This is why the NYT Israel correspondent should never be a Jew. A Jew can be made to succumb in a “Jewish State.”
Traditionally, you never appoint a local as a foreign correspondent. A big lanky guy from North Dakota would have been better, someone with detachment.
Rudoren: Ms. Shaked is an outspoken hawk on the Palestinian issue…
The NYT is a bit clueless about Ms. Shaked. According to NewsDiffs.org, the originally published copy of the article read Mr. Shaked… A correction was later added to inform us that Ms. Shaked is, in fact, a woman.
I would expect nothing less from old Ho Hum.
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2012/11/gazans-have-aspiration-to-martyrdom-and-have-such-limited-lives-that-they-have-less-to-lose-than-israelis-nyts-rudoren
I was listening to her and also was trying to understand the confused answers and comments of the NPR host. At one time he said basically that Israel now had all the momentum since the threat from Iraq,Syria,Libya had melted away . He was asking if Israel would use the opportunity to force what it would like see happen in Palestine . There was talk of status quo and maintaining the grip but no mention of the dire situation in Palestine no pushback against current Israeli attempts to influence the political situation in Syria a nd Lebanon through support to terrorism or even the recent anti Obama anti Iran activities in US Congress .The respect and reverence were palpable in the air .