The New York Times has a big editorial titled, How the US and Israel Can Move Forward. You don’t need to read it, though; here is a pithy summary from a friend:
It’s really important that the US and Israel patch things up, though maybe we can only afford 3 billion a year rather than 5 as Israel wants. Both Netanyahu and Abbas are to blame. Israel should stop settlement expansion. Violence by Palestinians ( there is no other kind) should cease. Someday maybe in the distant future there might conceivably be a Palestinian state, if there is any room left, but in the meantime Israelis should feel safe and secure and we can talk about what we need to give them to assure that.
Oh and for verisimilitude, some excerpts:
it is in the strategic interests of both countries to find a way to work together more constructively…
Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress [and a rightwinger on Palestinian rights], still believes a peace deal is possible…
For the moment, officials say Mr. Obama is urging Mr. Netanyahu to relieve tensions with the Palestinians and leave open the possibility of a two-state solution in the future…
Palestinian [must] put a stop to their violent assaults on Israelis.
There are actually two types of liberal Zionists [my pithy friend continues]. One type is genuinely appalled by Israel’s behavior and criticize them almost as harshly as we do. They may even favor BDS or if their Zionism prevents that, they acknowledge that Israel reaps what it sows. The other type only cares about the two state solution as some abstract goal whose only purpose is to make them sound liberal. They downplay the cruelty of Israel as much as possible, never speak about Israeli atrocities though they do condemn Palestinian terror, and restrict their criticism to settlement building. That last bit is crucial– it is true that settlements are a crucial issue, but by reducing Israel’s crimes to settlement building they make Israeli misdeeds seem nonviolent and abstract, while the only violence ever condemned is Palestinian. Obviously the NYT is in category 2. The injustice to Palestinians isn’t something that should create any sort of rift between the US and Israel. Some people matter and some don’t.
When the history of this conflict is written, and the chapter inevitably turns to domestic US politics(of which the media is a crucial part), the toxic racism of the NYT will be a cancerous standout.
I no longer believe that these crimes will go on unreported forever. Just like there were a series of books dedicated to how the NYT downplayed the Shoah in the 1930s, several decades from now, young and smart people will read about the virulent racism of the supposed “liberal” NYT and how they continually shilled for Jewish apartheid.
The tribal loyalty of the Sulzberger family will be an unrelenting – and painful – motif in that story. And it will shame the self-concept of many Establishment Jews as “liberals”. For they are not alone.
” Israel reaps what it sows”
i.e., more and more land from Palestinians, more and more money and weapons from the U.S.
and a pony
Every drip of the NYT hasbara faucet buys time for Israel to dig themselves into a deeper hole from which there is no possible escape.