PrintSlamming Israel in NY Times' 'Jerusalem Journal'
It's bad enough when American Jews oppose their own people out of ignorance, misguided leftwing thinking, self-hate, or any variety of other reasons; but I find it particularly disgusting when an American Jew whose own son is serving in the Israeli military gratuitously bashes the State of Israel, perhaps merely as way of trying to demonstrate the supposed "objectivity" that has kept him on the job as Jerusalem bureau chief for the New York Times.
But such is the case with Ethan Bronner, who once again slams the Jewish State in his "Jerusalem Journal" article in today's edition.
Bronner uses the reporting of simultaneous Israeli and Palestinian literary festivals in the Israeli capital city this week to portray Israel as mean oppressors of a Palestinian people about whom he quotes a liberal British Jew as saying regarding a visit to the West Bank,
"You hear so much about the rage, the violent mood," he said, "but I have found a language of peace, freedom and justice. The festival is recognition of the independent life of the Palestinian people. Coming through the invisible barrier of fear has actually filled me with hope. I found deep humanity on the other side."
So, we see, those folks who lob rockets at and send suicide bombers over to Israel are really swell people pursuing peace, freedom, and justice.
Nevertheless, he reports, these wonderful Palestinians are gratuitously oppressed:
...there was no escaping at either conference the suffering brought upon the Palestinians by Israeli security policies, although there were nuances of interpretation.
"I was infuriated," said Nancy Kricorian, a New York City novelist and poet who visited here for the first time as part of the Palestinian festival and faced military checkpoints and the separation barrier.
The writers at the Palestinian events ... spent the week traveling around the West Bank from universities to cultural centers, and got a dose of Israeli checkpoints and Palestinian frustration that included five hours at the Jordan-West Bank border while Israeli officials questioned those with Arabic names.
No mention, of course of why Israel has had to maintain numerous checkpoints and security barriers to protect itself from the wanton murder raids carried out against its citizens for so many tears by the peace, freedom, and justice-loving Palestinians.
Bronner also quotes an Israeli writer named Nir Baram:
"There are many things that we don't talk about," and he included among those "the systematic confiscation of the rights of non-Jews in Israel and the territories."
What rights, and which non-Jews? Bronner makes no effort to explain or contradict this slander. He certainly makes no mention of the fact that Israeli Arabs have more freedom and more civil rights than do the Arabs of any Arab nation. Christians and other non-Jews, of course, also enjoy full civil rights in Israel and more rights in the conquered territories than when they were under Muslim control.
Among all this denigrating of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians, not a single word of compliment of defense for Israel is to be found, nor a single fault mentioned with the Palestinian policies of hate indoctrination, terrorism, and devotion to the destruction of the Jewish state. In Bronner's eyes, it is not even a "moral equivalence," but a matzav, or situation, in which only Israel is to be faulted. I would say that the Times ought to tell Bronner to pack his bags and leave Israel for some other post; but judging by Jerusalem bureau chiefs of the past, I am sure that any replacement would be just as bad so long as they were working for Pinch's paper.
