The New York Times coverage of the latest crisis in occupied Palestine is so distorted and so biased that it must have been deliberate.
The U.S. media has missed one key part of the anti-Netanyahu protest story: the shockingly different ways Israeli police and military treat Jewish and Palestinian protests.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently said that the two-state solution in Israel/Palestine is, if not already dead, “in hospice.” Now it’s time for news reporters at his paper and other mainstream U.S. media, to look squarely at how and why two states is no longer possible. Instead, the two-state solution is supposedly still the ideal — for the U.S. government, among others. The headline after the U.S. Secretary of State’s arrival in Israel yesterday was, predictably: “Blinken reaffirms need for two-state solution after talks with Netanyahu.”
“The New York Times” realized it had to report the year-end casualty statistics for Palestinians in the West Bank, the highest toll since 2005.
So it looked for a way to shift attention away from the major perpetrators — the Israeli military and Jewish settler/colonists — and put it on the Palestinians.
Racist rightwinger Itamar Ben-Gvir gets the security portfolio in Netanyahu’s next government and promises to visit the Al-Aqsa mosque in a provocation to Palestinians reminiscent of Ariel Sharon’s deadly visit there in 2000. But this is not news for the New York Times, which blinds its readers to the frightening developments in Israel.
Once again the “New York Times” launders the dark forces gaining power in Israeli politics. Tensions in the occupied Palestinian West Bank are already at their highest level in years, and yet Israel’s security policy is now in the hands of a fascist who was considered so extreme that he wasn’t even allowed to serve as a foot soldier in the Israeli army when he was younger.
Itamar Ben-Gvir will probably be the kingmaker in Israel’s next government. So why do the New York Times and National Public Radio downplay his racism?
The ‘NYTimes’ bias is clear as it attempts to blame Palestinians for Israel’s latest deadly unprovoked attack on Gaza .
The State Department declares after examining the bullet that the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh was likely by an Israeli soldier but definitely not “intentional.” Really? The U.S. whitewash is brazen. It’s no surprise the State Department hoped Americans were too distracted by Fourth of July fireworks to pay attention. But why does the “New York Times” play along?
The PBS News Hour host rightly grilled Antony Blinken about why Joe Biden is meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince next month despite the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But Woodruff cannot bring herself to mention Biden’s visit to Israel weeks after its killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, which it has yet to account for.