David Halbfinger has left his job as the New York Times bureau chief in Jerusalem to take a new position as a publicist for Israel’s military. That’s one explanation for today’s embarrassing, gushing PR article about how the army is using technology to fight the coronavirus.
Another possible explanation is that a hostile critic, determined to discredit Halbfinger’s pro-Israel bias, commandeered his computer and produced a wicked parody.
Here’s how the article starts:
The Israeli Defense Ministry’s research-and-development arm is best known for pioneering cutting edge ways to kill people and blow things up, with stealth tanks and super drones among its more lethal recent projects.
The flippant tone is jaw-dropping. Israel’s army has been credibly accused of war crimes, particularly in Gaza, including charges from its own soldiers who belong to the courageous Breaking the Silence movement.
Halbfinger goes on to enumerate in numbing detail how “Israel’s vaunted high-tech sector and its military-industrial behemoths” are confronting Covid-19 with diagnostic tests, tracking, and telemedicine. Here’s one example; he reports enthusiastically that Israel “has also adapted the cockpit controls it builds for fighter jets and helicopters to store and analyze information about Covid-19 patients on ventilators.”
Halbfinger’s press release is straight out of the strategy book at Hasbara Central, Israel’s sophisticated propaganda apparatus. Over time, the hasbarists recognized that close scrutiny of Israel’s human rights record would damage the country’s reputation. So they changed the subject, to praise Israel’s alleged advances in high technology. Hasbara Central’s theme became “the Start-up Nation,” and Dan Senor, who worked as a mouthpiece for the Bush administration during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, even co-authored a book with the expression in the title.
How today’s article got published, even in the notoriously pro-Israel Times, is a mystery. Cringe-inducing sentences like this one lend credence to the theory that a hostile critic may be responsible:
“In Israel, if there’s a mission that has to be done, it’s like a war,” said Brig. Gen. Dani Gold, who is leading the charge. “Everybody drops what they’re doing, tunes into the mission and works on the mission with a lot of energy and creativity.”
Meanwhile, real coronavirus news in Israel/Palestine goes unreported in America’s leading newspaper. This site has already noted how the Times ignores important angles, such as discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel in relief efforts despite the disproportionate role of those very same people on the front lines in the country’s medical system. The Israeli paper Haaretz has published compelling human interest stories about Palestinian Israelis amid the crisis. But David Halbfinger can’t seem to track them down.
The article above brings to mind the following one regarding another low life, Yair Netanyahu:
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-yair-netanyahu-becomes-the-star-of-a-german-nationalist-party-after-calling-eu-evil-1.8825923
“Netanyahu’s Son Becomes Star of German Nationalist Party After Calling EU ‘Evil'” Haaretz, May 8/20
“AfD lawmaker tweets poster quoting Yair Netanyahu after the prime minister’s son appealed for a return to a ‘free, democratic and Christian’ Europe.”
“Yair Netanyahu, the son of the Israeli prime minister, has become the new campaign face for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party after calling the European Union an ‘evil globalist organization’ last week.
“Senior AfD lawmaker Joachim Kuhs tweeted on Wednesday a poster of Netanyahu, echoing his calls for ‘a free, democratic and Christian’ Europe.
‘”#Christianity is the #Remedy for the evils of the globalist #EU, writes Yair Netanyahu,’ Kuhs tweeted alongside a poster that reads: ‘Schengen is dead. Hopefully, the globalist EU will be too. Then, Europe will again be free, democratic and Christian.’
“The Schengen zone comprises 26 European states that have officially abolished all passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders, and includes Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland.
“Netanyahu later tweeted back at Kuhs, writing, ‘Please act with your colleagues to stop this insanity!’ with a link to a page on the NGO Monitor website that describes how ‘The German federal government provides millions of euros to political advocacy NGOs in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza through a variety of frameworks.’
“Netanyahu had originally tweeted last Tuesday in response to a joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony for Israel’s Memorial Day. ‘Shame on you for financing a disgrace in the holiest day of the Israeli calendar!'” (cont’d)
Wow we have agreement that the Halbfinger article was a disgrace!
The Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer also has slammed the ‘New York Times’ for ‘Libel’ Against the Jewish State for publishing Halbfinger’s shameful twisting of reality, which has completely distorted what Israel represents.