Only a couple of weeks ago, in response to collateral damage and fall out in the ongoing story of how bad the reporting of Israel is, the Public editor of the New York Times wrote the following:
The Times is biased, both sides charge. The Jerusalem bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren, somehow manages to be — as the critics would have it — both wildly anti-Israel and practically a tool of the Israeli government.
One organization, Camera, even pays for a billboard across the street from the Times building to accuse the paper of regularly attacking Israel. And pro-Palestinian websites like The Electronic Intifada have detailed the ways in which, as they see it, Times coverage fails to do justice to an outcast people.
Margaret Sullivan is trying to use a defence made famous by the BBC: we’re getting complaints from “extremists” on both sides so we must be doing a reasonable job of navigating a middle road. She does, later, dismiss this rule (as Mirabelle noted in her piece) but I want to look at the two organisations she chose to highlight.
If CAMERA has ever called for the eradication of Palestine, I wasn’t aware of it. If CAMERA has ever directly incited violence against Arabs or defended or excused the actions of terrorists I didn’t hear about. The charge that CAMERA is a “tool of the Israeli government” is also pretty far out in conspiracy la-la land.
Electronic Intifada, on the other hand…. well it doesn’t take long for that site’s proprietor, the odious Ali Abunimah to show his colours. We have a mountain of material about him on Israellycool so here’s one more piece as Ali goes after me as a “settler extremist” after I exchange a couple of tweets with the US Ambassador to Israel.
And just to make sure we all get the picture:
Because he has to add “anti-Palestinian” to his earlier charge of “settler extremist”.
I suspect he’s fully aware I live in North Tel Aviv, rarely regarded by sane people as “occupied territory”. Of course terrorists like Hamas regard it as occupied Palestinian land.
https://twitter.com/brianoflondon/status/543803467463417856
Just to remind you, Ali was born in the USA to a Jordanian diplomat. I’m guessing he didn’t receive his first kick when he hit the ground. But that’s just the thing: the New York Times has given this man completely undeserved respectability by even mentioning him and dragged CAMERA’s name into the mud by putting them side by side in the same paragraph. What a travesty.
