The New York Times just ran a column by Shmuel Rosner calling for Palestine to become part of Jordan in order for Palestinians to obtain political rights. The column includes several swipes at Palestinians as lesser to Israeli Jews, and needing to be separated from Israel:
Since 1967, Israel hasn’t been able to identify a Palestinian leadership that can be trusted to keep the peace and maintain order…. And so it has always hoped that Israel’s eventual separation from Palestinians will include a guarantee of — to put it bluntly — adult supervision.
Why does the Times have this guy in its stable? The anti-Palestinian racist viewpoint is adequately represented by Bret Stephens and Thomas Friedman, but they also write about other things— Stephens wants a war with Iran, for instance and doesn’t like Trump. He and Gail Collins have adorable Resistance lovefests sometimes. Thomas Friedman loves CEO’s and austerity and war and occasionally even says something sensible about global warming.
But all Rosner does is talk about Israel from a far right perspective.
Back in May Rosner said that the slaughter of 60 Palestinians that week at the Gaza border was for their own good:
I believe Israel’s current policy toward Gaza ultimately benefits not only Israel but also the Palestinians. Of course, it does not benefit the Palestinians who dream about “returning,” or in other words, about eliminating Israel. But it is the only way forward for those who have more realistic expectations.
Four years ago during the 2014 Gaza slaughter, he expressed narcissistic contempt for liberal American Jews who were critical of the onslaught that killed more than 500 children.
On matters of life and death, war and peace, Israelis are going to make their own decisions. If they lose the support of some liberal Jews over it, that would be regrettable, but so be it.
Does the Times and its readers really need a columnist whose only role is propagandist for this particular country?
Why does NYT give space to such trash?
I guess the NYT feels it must (if under pressure; or if not under pressure ardently desires to ) placate the Zionist far-right. In short, it is part of the long-evolved mechanism of manufactured consent in the USA and it matters little if at all whether the pressure (on NYT) to promote far-right Zionism (but by now all Zionism, in my book, is far right, because it admires and excuses apartheid and mass expulsion and casual killing) comes from internal passions or beliefs (say from the owners) or from advertisers or golfing buddies or as a price for access to USA bigwigs — or anything else.
In effect, NYT is a part of Israel’s propaganda arm, whether or not paid to be so by Israel.
American democracy and a free press always allowed for partisanship, propaganda, and a vile press.
So it goes.
Yes, Donald.
The answer is yes – it does. And it won’t ever stop.
They do not care about anything other than the most vulgar pro-Israel perspective.
The end.
Ten or more years ago this Rosner worked for an Israeli paper, maybe Haaretz. I used to read Haaretz when it was still free, so it was probably there but I’m not absolutely sure.
Once, he made an interview to a hassidic rabbi who was leaving to join a group in Uruguay. He had also just then published a book on the importance of not intermarrying.
So I wrote Rosner to ask the rabbi what was the point. I mean, why do you migrate to a country while at the same time denying yourself the possibility of marrying a local? What is the purpose then, to live there isolated from local culture, language, customs and what not?
Uruguay is a country that originally had almost no natives, and mostly anybody is descendant of European immigrants. And everybody mixes gladly with everybody: Spaniards, Catalans, Basques, Italians, Germans, Swiss, English and even some random American marry happily with everybody else. Origin or race (there are also descendants of African slaves) is not very important, even if the usual social or economic position apply, as usual. A number of Jews came around WWII, and even if not too frequently, they intermarry also.
So this is the place were this hassidics were, and the rabbi was going … only to abstain from intermixing. Do they really think that the ‘natives’ will not notice this blatant racism after a while? People usually don’t intermarry when they consider themselves above the rest, by some measure. When they consider themselves below or at the same level, where is the problem?
I asked Rosner to transmit this (and some more) to the rabbi, I was very interested in his answer. But Rosner never got back to me.
Oh well, probably the rabbi and his tribe of hassidics have long since ‘ascended’ to Israel and my questions will never get answered. As if I didn’t know …
Very good points regarding the two columnists, but Oh, PLEASE, Mondoweiss, can’t you post more about the New York Times and its coverage blackout of the Great March of Return and so many other stories that appear in foreign media and in Electronic Intifada? All of these obvious “omissions” of the human rights crisis in Gaza and the rest of what little remains of Palestine are dictated by NYT Publisher A.G. Sulzberger, Executive Editor Dean Baquet, a person of color who apparently “tolerates” racism in Times coverage of daily human rights violations in Palestine at the hands of brutal, racist, genocidal, ethnic cleansing, fascist, racist Zionist Israel. Why not write about these human rights criminals?
The New York Times has become part of the Hasbara. This narrative I have seen from the Hasbara trolls, who keep regurgitating the theory that there is no place called Palestine, and they should all go to Jordan. Shame on the NYT for publishing the work of many so called journalists, who are doing the bidding of the zionists, pushing their propaganda, and making the victims look the aggressors. It is also amusing to see their feigned concern for the well being of the Palestinian people. If they genuinely were concerned, they would call for the zionist masters to end the damn occupation, and stop stealing lands. They do not call it them the zionist media for nothing.