It must have been a very slow news day at the New York Times’s Jerusalem bureau. It’s chief, Jodi Rudoren, however, may have felt it necessary to run something – anything she could think of – to avoid breaking the daily parade of articles promoting the paper’s attitudes of antipathy toward Israel and sympathy toward the Palestinians.

So, Saturday’s installment announces that 43 Israeli Reservist members of an elite intelligence unit have released publicly a letter refusing to serve in the West Bank and denouncing the IDF’s intelligence-gathering tactics there.

We, in the United States, are not unfamiliar with conscientious objectors, draft dodgers, deserters, and the like. So, it should come as no surprise that Israel has its fanatic anti-military elements as well. Aside from a fairly standard boilerplate comment from an IDF PR spokesperson, no “other side” and no “context” is provided.

Among the things Rudoren failed to mention is that 43 soldiers out of active and reserve forces of over 600,000 is a completely insignificant number. She didn’t mention, either that Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence under Netanyahu, played down the letter, saying 43 reservists were a "fringe percentage" of those available to Unit 8200.

Nor did she mention that, so far, over 150 members of that same Unit 8200 have signed a letter stating: "We are veterans of Unit 8200, soldiers and reserve soldiers, past and present, who wish to express shock, disgust and total renouncement of the letter written by our fellow soldiers, who chose political refusal over our unit." Had she done so, she also might have mentioned that the gathering of signatures continues apace, but is paused for the observance of the Sabbath after the complaint letter was made public on Friday. And, for those readers who are not Jewish, she might have also explained the Sabbath’s accounting for the slowness of full response from the Prime Minister’s office and from other leaders, although a few military and political officials did find time to make statements – all that were reported were highly negative, and there has been a call for dishonorable discharge of the 43 dissidents.

Reports Israel news service Arutz Sheva:

The leftists' letter has also begun to stir reactions from MKs, with Coalition Chairman Yariv Levin stating earlier Friday that the soldiers do not deserve the privilege of serving in the elite unit. 

MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) has released her own response to the letter as well, stating Friday night that the letter is a "social suicide bomb" and "reflects the moral inadequacies of the Israeli education system." 

And also that:

Coalition Chairman Yariv Levin (Likud) called for the immediate dismissal of 43 reservists from the IDF's elite 8200 Unit on Friday afternoon, after they announced their refusal to serve in the IDF due to leftist beliefs and misconceptions about the IDF's self-defense operation in Gaza, Operation Protective Edge.

Levin, a former 8200 soldier himself, scathingly attacked the claims of the letter, which alleged that the IDF harms Palestinian Arabs instead of protecting Israelis from terror attacks.

…or informed her readers that even the:

Opposition Chairman and Labor Party leader MK Yitzchak Herzog, a reserve officer in Military Intelligence's 8200 Unit, sharply criticized on Saturday 43 reservist officers and soldiers from the same unit, who signed a letter of insubordination following Operation Protective Edge. *   *   * "I oppose refusal to serve and am wholly disgusted by it,” he added. “This unit and its operations are vital not only for wartime but especially and mostly for peace.”

Rudoren might also have noted that:

According to Channel 10, which interviewed a number of the letter’s signatories, the reservists’ fellow soldiers in the unit were “furious” over their decision to publicly air their grievances against the unit’s activities in the West Bank.

And it might have made for fairer coverage had Rudoren indicated that:

The Palestinian Authority on Friday applauded a letter by thirty-three reserve soldiers and 10 reserve officers from the IDF’s highly regarded 8200 intelligence unit expressing their refusal to take part in any action designed to “harm the Palestinian population” in the West Bank.

Adnan Damiri, the official spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, hailed the move as an ethical step and said the Palestinians “salute” such humanitarian initiatives to help an oppressed people.

Not one word could Rudoren find condemning the action of the 43 – although there were plenty, even though their letter became public on a Friday night; she didn’t see fit to report the Palestinian glee over the incident; and she managed to present the Israeli army’s side of the matter only by repeating a brief, highly standardized statement from “Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military,” who “said specific incidents mentioned in officers’ testimonies presented with the group’s letter would be examined, and that “ramifications” for refusing to serve — including possible criminal prosecution — would be handled individually.”