The New York Times finds it very worrisome that congressional Republicans and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are getting along just fine.  In fact, the Times smells something downright sinister in the growing amity between the GOP and the Israeli leader.  And the Times doesn't like this one bit.

Also, it's not shy about letting readers know that the strong bonds between Bibi and the Republican Party on Capitol Hill don't bode well for the Times' own agenda of appeasing the Palestinians.

There, on the front page above the fold, pops up a lengthy article in the Sept. 21 edition, headlined:  "House G.O.P. Finds A Growing Bond With Netanyahu -- Impact on Diplomacy -- Issue in Effort by U.S. to Avoid Confrontation at U.N. Session."

The article, by Jennifer Steinhauer and Steven Lee Myers, starts off with a recent grant of $50 million in U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority that was running into trouble in the House.  So the Obama administration turned to Netanyahu for some assistance, he in turn informed lawmakers that Israel supported continued funding of the PA because it had more important fish to fry like blocking Palestinian statehood at the UN and it wants the world to see that it's the PA -- not Israel -- that's gumming up the peace process.  And the PA got the money.

Nothing sinister in that, you might think.  But not in the dark recesses of the NY Times.  Its article, in the lead paragraph, immediately tags Netanyahu pejoratively as a "singularly influential lobbyist."  And we all know that's not meant as a compliment.

To the Times, the $50 million grant doesn't count as a positive manifestation of Israel and the U.S. proceeding on the same page.  Instead, it underscores "an extraordinary intersection of American diplomacy and domestic politics, the result of an ever-tightening relationship between the Israeli government and the Republican Party that now controls the House."  Yikes!

But with the Times, it gets even worse. The Bibi-GOP bond, it asserts, "significantly complicates" the Obama administration's effort to derail Palestinian statehood at the UN.  And why is that?  Because it "limits President Obama's ability to exert pressure on Mr. Netanyahu to make concessions that could restart negotiations with the Palestinians."

And there you have it:  The Times' first and last priority is to muscle Israel to make more and more concessions -- and Bibi's close ties with Republicans in the House stand in the way.  How awful!

Now, we get to the funny part.  The article's authors eventually get around to the fact that "unbending support for Israel has long been a bipartisan fact of American politics."  So why all the commotion about Republicans and Democrats in Congress, Israel and the White House, all just moving on the same path?  Ah, but here's the fly in the ointment -- "Mr. Netanyahu's popularity in Congress now runs deeper than ever."  That'  the real rub and it's just terrible as far as the Times is concerned.

Never mind that, as the article eventually admits, threats to cut off U.S. aid to the PA have come from both GOP and Democratic leaders.  As an example of such bipartisanship, Steinhauer and Myers point to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer joining in an op-ed article supporting Israel.

Except that they don't identify Cantor as the majority leader in the Republican House.  Times readers instead are told that Cantor is the "most powerful Jewish member of Congress."

And that I find particularly disgusting because it smells of the age-old anti-Semitic conspiracies that have led to countless pogroms and worse.  If Cantor's religion is relevant, why isn't Hoyer's mentioned?   With the Times, just being Jewish arouses suspicion.