Today’s New York Times has a long report explaining that “Palestinian leaders” are hoping Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump. So far, though, there’s no Times article that shows that Israel’s leaders, along with a crushing majority of Israeli Jews, actually support Donald Trump.
The gist of today’s Times article is that a Biden administration
would give the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, a face-saving chance to reverse a self-inflicted economic hardship that has been punishing his people for months.
This is astonishing bias. To protest Israel’s threat to annex large chunks of the West Bank under Trump’s “peace plan,” Abbas stopped accepting “millions of dollars in taxes that Israel collects on the Palestinian Authority’s behalf,” which meant salary cuts for Palestinian civil servants.
Abbas’s move may have been a mistake, but average Palestinians (people the Times article ignored) surely would have complained more bitterly about Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza as the more important causes of their “economic hardship.”
But who do Israeli Jews support for U.S. president? Luckily, there’s no doubt here: a poll in Israel showed that Trump is backed more than three to one by Israeli Jews — 77 to 23 percent among those with an opinion. The American view of Israel as some kind of liberal, progressive beacon has long passed its sell-by date.
Whitewashing Israel’s true right-wing nature today is a key feature in biased coverage by the New York Times and the rest of the U.S. mainstream media. You will rarely, for instance, read hair-raising accounts of the open racism among Israeli Jewish “settlers” and others. Covering up the Jewish Israeli enthusiasm for Donald Trump is only the latest example of this bias.
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Bravo Peter Beinart!!:
https://jewishcurrents.org/israels-repressive-diplomacy/?utm_source=Jewish+Currents&utm_campaign=8505ee7292-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_10_27_04_36&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_68eb62cd4a-8505ee7292-362145920
“Israel’s Repressive Diplomacy” by Peter Beinart, Jewish Currents, October 26/20
EXCERPT:
“ON OCTOBER 23RD, Donald Trump announced that Sudan would begin the process of normalizing relations with Israel. The declaration, which was part of a deal to remove Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terror, follows last month’s pledges by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to recognize the Jewish state. Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have claimed that those peace deals—dubbed ‘The Abraham Accords‘—will promote “human dignity and freedom” in the Middle East.
“Twelve days after the Abraham Accords were signed, a poet named Dhabiya Khamis tried to exercise her freedom to leave the UAE. Her government barred her from boarding the plane. ‘The ban is probably because of my announced opinion against Zionism and normalization,’ Khamis declared. ‘I fear for my freedom and life from being threatened and arrested.’ Those fears were well-founded. According to a report in Middle East Monitor, ‘scores of Emiratis, Palestinians and Jordanians living in the UAE’ had already been jailed ‘for opposing Abu-Dhabi’s peace deal with Israel.’
“Khamis’s experience illustrates a harsh truth: Although Israel’s diplomatic breakthroughs in the Persian Gulf have elicited bipartisan praise in Washington, they rely on—and contribute to—brutal repression. In Sudan, which is undergoing a fragile transition after three decades of dictatorial rule, normalization imperils democracy too. The reason is simple. In a region where sympathy for the Palestinian cause still runs deep, recognizing Israel elicits fierce popular opposition. To implement normalization agreements, therefore, Netanyahu and Trump need their Arab partners to quash domestic dissent. For years, Israel’s boosters have bemoaned the lack of democracy in the Middle East. Ironically, it is that lack of democracy on which Israel’s peace diplomacy largely depends.”
(cont’d)
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“In a region dominated by autocratic governments, gauging people’s views—especially on a subject as sensitive as relations with Israel—is difficult. Some polling suggests overwhelming public opposition. In 2019 and 2020, for instance, when the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies asked more than 28,000 individuals in 13 Arab countries whether they supported ‘diplomatic recognition of Israel by your country,’ 88% said no. In June, when the Washington Institute for Near East Peace asked Emiratis whether ‘people who want to have business or sports contacts with Israelis should be allowed to do so,’ 80% disagreed. By contrast, a 2019 Zogby Research Services survey of eight Arab countries, including the UAE, found considerable openness to establishing diplomatic ties. (Many respondents, James Zogby has suggested, believed that “with normalization Arab states would gain some leverage over Israel enabling them to help secure rights for the Palestinian people.”) But even under the most generous reading of the data, any Arab government that sought its people’s approval for a peace treaty with Israel would face substantial resistance—which helps explain why, in both Bahrain and the UAE, warming relations with the Jewish state have coincided with intensifying repression.”
No one can fault the Palestinians for wanting Biden to win….Trump has very cruelly stopped the aid from reaching them, has imposed sanctions of them, and they are suffering very badly during the pandemic with no help. Trump has also openly sided with their occupier, and handed them Jerusalem and the Golan Heights….all indications that he is totally supportive, and protective, of the occupier (Adelson’s millions of dollars can do that). The Palestinians are desperate for someone to end their decades of suffering, and perhaps view Biden as lesser as the two evils.
http://www.dci.plo.ps/en/article/16771/Dr-Hanan-Ashrawi-US-Decision-to-Label-Jerusalem-as-Israel-is-attempt-to-erase-Palestinians
The Palestine Liberation Organization Press Release, Oct. 30, 2020
Dr. Hanan Ashrawi:
“The US State Department’s new decision to allow the labeling of Jerusalem as part of Israel in official US documents is a falsification of the City´s history and identity, in line with Israeli criminality and lawlessness. It is also a continuation of this administration’s sinister scramble to compound injustice and create new oppressive facts in Palestine ahead of upcoming elections.
“This decision comes while Israel is taking unprecedented illegal measures to displace and replace Palestinians in Jerusalem, including home demolitions, exile orders, and revoking the ID’s of Palestinians.
“By adopting this measure, the US administration is also retroactively recognizing other illegal Israeli actions, including the ethnic cleansing of West Jerusalem and the grand theft of Palestinian property. This is an affront to the City’s history and identity. It is also a clear violation of UN resolutions 181 II (1948) and 194 III (1948), which affirmed the status of the whole city of Jerusaleas Corpus separatum, as well as UN General Assembly resolution 303 IV (1949) and others that affirmed the inviolability of Jerusalem’s status. These resolutions remain the only legal and acceptable references relating to the status of Jerusalem.
“The US administration is using all tools at its disposal to erase Palestine, physically, politically, culturally, and figuratively. This includes the administration´s so-called plan to formalize permanent apartheid and its campaign of Arab normalization through bribes, blackmail, and intimidation.
“Horrific massacres like that committed in Deir Yassin and countless others, social engineering policies, and mass transfers have been employed to uproot Palestinians from Jerusalem. They have failed. This gratuitous US measure will not succeed either. Jerusalem was, is, and will remain the heart of Palestine.”
James
Everybody already knows that Israelis overwhelmingly prefer Trump.
What’s this hard-on you have for the New York Times?
You sound like an angry jilted lover.