Jerusalem Under Israel, A City of Intolerance

Zionism infects every aspect of American life, it often seems. Take the New York Times, this liberal establishment front, feigns criticism of Israel, but, rather, adheres to a fiercely pro-Zionist editorial line and coverage. The Times can opine whatever it wants, but the "paper of record" engages in journalistic covering-up and advocacy for Israel in its correspondent dispatches as well.

jerusalem soldiers Brcoj 19672

No surprise there. The two journalists hired to cover Israel and Occupied Palestine are married to Israelis, one was raised there and the other has a son serving in the Israeli occupation forces or IDF. Would the New York Times ever hire as a bureau chief in Damascus someone whose son serves in the Syrian arm? Of course, but such concerns over impartiality do not bother the paper in this case.

That bureau chief in Jerusalem, Ethan Bonner, is a unfailing propagandist for Israel. Beyond ignoring the oppression of Palestinians and publishing fluff pieces on Israel where Israel claims are accepted at face value, he always had the trick of - when forced to present image-damaging news on Israel - of diluting the substance so that by the time the reader gets to the information it does not sound to displeasing to the ears.

Take his characterization of Israel's far-right, neo-fascist and racist foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman. This is a man who openly calls for ethnic cleansing and has made threats of war against Egypt. When Bronner wrote about him, he classified him as a ... "classic conservative". This is a new term. Whoever heard of such an expression? The Times did not want to call him, say, an ultra-nationalist or far-right or xenophobic, so instead they invented the term "classic conservative" because it sounds more comforting. So being a fascist is now simply an old school Tory. This is the insidious nature of the Times, where the book reviews and even the sports column are infected with Zionism.

I thought about this recently when I saw the Financial Times of London publish a laconic review of the world's best and worst cities, and had this unfavorable review of Jerusalem:

"I know, I know – beautiful, holy, history lingers in its every shady corner. Yet the treatment of Arabs as second-class citizens, the ghastly security wall smashing through its edges and the omnipresent guns have spoilt it. Jerusalem is the perfect example of why tolerance is so critical to a city."

Can you imagine an American newspaper ever making note of discrimination against Arabs or expressing disregard for Jerusalem due to the Jewish-supremacist, intolerance that characterize this occupied city? No, when the Times has a travel piece on Israel the Palestinians simply do not exist.

It is a reflection that in the rest of the world, the crap that is Zionism has long been discredited and only here in the US of A does Israel's trash still carry water as Zionists dominate in the press corps.