Media Analysis

‘NY Times’ election coverage whitewashes anti-Arab racism among Jewish Israelis

Just imagine the outcry if the New York Times completely ignored the existence of black and Latino voters in its analysis of the U.S. elections. But the paper continues to practice electoral apartheid in its coverage of Israel, which goes to the polls again Monday for the third time in less than a year.

Let’s start with a fact: 20 percent of the population of Israel within the 1967 borders are Arab Palestinians. Yet David Halbfinger’s pre-election survey today finds 6 different Jewish Israelis to quote, but not one single Arab. 

He also treats the repeat elections as a kind of joke:

Is this election more ‘Groundhog Day’ or an episode of the ‘Twilight Zone’? A Sartre novel or a Beckett play?

His attempt at wit covers up the ugly truth; Israel continues to have one election after another partly because there is so much anti-Arab racism in the country that none of the major Jewish political parties will dare to form even a tacit alliance with the Joint List, which represents the one-fifth of Israelis of Palestinian background. 

Halbfinger’s long report includes only one sentence about the Joint List: 

Spirits are comparatively high among Israel’s Arab minority, whose politicians want to improve on the 13 seats in Parliament that their combined slate, the Joint List, won in September. 

By not following up this tantalizing observation, Halbfinger is committing journalistic malpractice of a high order.

Once again, you can turn to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz to learn about what the New York Times is concealing. Apparently Palestinian citizens of Israel are not the only people planning to vote for the Joint List. An intriguing Haaretz podcast predicts that the Jewish vote for the Arab coalition could double to 70,000, a “record number,” which could give the group one more parliamentary seat. 

You also won’t learn from Halbfinger’s whitewash that the leader of the Joint List, Ayman Odeh, has become what the Haaretz podcasters call “the first superstar politician from the Arab community.” They say he is “super-likable.” Bradley Burston, a veteran Jewish journalist, describes him as “much more Israeli than I ever will be.”

The Haaretz podcasters also use a painful but accurate word to describe Palestinian citizens in Israel’s political system: “pariahs.” Until now, Arab voters know that their candidates will never be able to form part of the government, and the number of Palestinian Arab cabinet ministers over the decades has been laughably tiny. Imagine the indignation if black Americans and Latinos were still kept out of the U.S. government. 

And the New York Times continues to ignore Ayman Odeh, even though 1) he leads the 3rd-largest political force in Israel, 2) he is completely committed to nonviolence, and 3) he is impressive and quotable in person, as this site found more than 4 years ago.

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Not only does the NYT whitewash anti-Arab racism among Israeli Jews, it whitewashes anti-Arab racism at AIPAC. The Forward just ran an article about the anti-Muslim bigotry of AIPAC:

https://forward.com/opinion/440469/bravo-bernie-for-skipping-aipac-its-a-platform-for-anti-muslim-bigotry/

“Bravo, Bernie, for skipping AIPAC. It’s a platform for anti-Muslim bigotry…”

Thanks for doing the distasteful work, James. I cannot bear to read the anti- Palestinian NYT. So Halbfinger et al are ‘erasing’ Palestinians in much the same way the Israel does… until the ‘leaders’ incite fear that they might turn out in droves and upset the apple cart.

“Spirits are comparatively high among Israel’s Arab minority, whose politicians want to improve on the 13 seats in Parliament that their combined slate, the Joint List, won in September. ”

Now, that reeks of the plantation, imho. Lordy! And please tell me why they insist on calling them “Israel’s Arab minority” when you can get it correct with ease? Palestinian Arabs or Arab Palestinians~ whichever they would prefer! I mean, they are Palestinians!!!

Ayman Odeh and the Joint List should fare well. Here’s a podcast with Gideon Levy that is amazing~ he’ll tell you who he is voting for as well:

“Bernie, Bibi and the Brutal Occupation: Listen to Gideon Levy”

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/bernie-bibi-and-the-brutal-occupation-listen-to-gideon-levy-1.8566605

A brief look at “anti-Arab racism among Jewish Israelis.”

Eminent Jewish Israeli journalist Bradley Burston aptly sums up the horrors Israel inflicts on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem:
“Occupation is Slavery”
EXCERPT:
“In the name of occupation, generation after generation of Palestinians have been treated as property. They can be moved at will, shackled at will, tortured at will, have their families separated at will. They can be denied the right to vote, to own property, to meet or speak to family and friends. They can be hounded or even shot dead by their masters, who claim their position by biblical right, and also use them to build and work on the plantations the toilers cannot themselves ever hope to own. The masters dehumanize them, call them by the names of beasts.” (Haaretz, Feb. 26/13)

Rabbi Perin, in an eulogy for mass murderer, Baruch Goldstein, in 1994: ‘One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.’ (New York Times, Feb. 28, 1994)

In April, 2001, during his Passover sermon, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, the spiritual leader of the Shas party and former Israeli Chief Rabbi, described the Arabs as ‘serpents’ and in his Passover sermon, he stated that ‘the Lord shall waste their seed, devastate them and vanish them from this world. It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.’

Regarding Palestinians residing in the occupied West Bank, Raphael Eitan, then Israel’s Chief of Staff, declared: ‘When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle….(New York Times, 14 April 1983)

Prime Minister Ehud Barak: ‘The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more…’ (Jerusalem Post, Aug. 30, 2002)

“Former Foreign Ministry director-general invokes South Africa comparisons. ‘Joint Israel-West Bank’ reality is an apartheid state”
EXCERPT: “Similarities between the ‘original apartheid’ as it was practiced in South Africa and the situation in ISRAEL [my emphasis] and the West Bank today ‘scream to the heavens,’ added [Alon] Liel, who was Israel’s ambassador in Pretoria from 1992 to 1994. There can be little doubt that the suffering of Palestinians is not less intense than that of blacks during apartheid-era South Africa, he asserted.” (Times of Israel, February 21, 2013)

“The Racist Entity That Is Taking Over Israel Must Be Toppled”
Haaretz, Feb 27, 2011 by Sefi Rachlevsky
“…Israel has built a world where the Jews are citizens and the Arabs are not, both in the occupied territories and in Jerusalem; where a Jewish man is a citizen and his Arab neighbor is not. Most Jewish first-graders attend ultra-Orthodox and religious schools. The majority of them are educated along the lines of ‘The King’s Torah.’ A Jew is human. A non-Jew is non-human. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ does not apply to non-Jews. And this is not delivered in the form of incitement, but as a simple statement of a fact. As simple as calling a chair a chair.”

Ridiculous that James ignores what can also be said about Palestinian Arab racism and which is even closer to the truth than what he claims against Jewish Israelis.
James, the soft spoken tea drinking Palestinian Arabs that you happen to know do not represent the Palestinian cause. They have zero influence on the Arab street. They do not represent the street because they are too scared of getting their throats cut but those who actually control the street. You are confused James and you do not want to see the truth.

Yeah. And Mondoweiss completely ignores the slaughter and refugee crisis in Idlib, Syria.

*crickets*