Netanyahu Refuses to Write Op-Ed for New York Times Due to Paper's Anti-Israel Bias
The New York Times learned Thursday that its biases have consequences.
In a letter from his senior adviser Ron Dermer obtained by the Jerusalem Post, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scornfully declined the Gray Lady's offer to write an op-ed due to the paper's long history of anti-Israel sentiments:
The opinions of some of your regular columnists regarding Israel are well known. They consistently distort the positions of our government and ignore the steps it has taken to advance peace. They cavalierly defame our country by suggesting that marginal phenomena condemned by Prime Minister Netanyahu and virtually every Israeli official somehow reflects government policy or Israeli society as a whole. Worse, one columnist even stooped to suggesting that the strong expressions of support for Prime Minister Netanyahu during his speech this year to Congress was "bought and paid for by the Israel lobby" rather than a reflection of the broad support for Israel among the American people.
As NewsBusters reported Thursday, that columnist would be Thomas Friedman. Dermer continued:
Yet instead of trying to balance these views with a different opinion, it would seem as if the surest way to get an op-ed published in the New York Times these days, no matter how obscure the writer or the viewpoint, is to attack Israel. Even so, the recent piece on “Pinkwashing,” in which Israel is vilified for having the temerity to champion its record on gay-rights, set a new bar that will be hard for you to lower in the future.
Not to be accused of cherry-picking to prove a point, I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, “positive” and “negative,” with “negative” meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were “negative.”
Dermer concluded:
Your refusal to publish “positive” pieces about Israel apparently does not stem from a shortage of supply. It was brought to my attention that the Majority Leader and Minority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives jointly submitted an op-ed to your paper in September opposing the Palestinian action at the United Nations and supporting the call of both Israel and the Obama administration for direct negotiations without preconditions. In an age of intense partisanship, one would have thought that strong bipartisan support for Israel on such a timely issue would have made your cut.
So with all due respect to your prestigious paper, you will forgive us for declining your offer. We wouldn't want to be seen as "Bibiwashing" the op-ed page of the New York Times.
Maybe someone should remind the folks at the Times that Israel is America's strongest ally in the Middle East.
Or mightn't that matter?
(H/T Hot Air)
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Comments
Netanyahu for President
Submitted by kch50428 on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 6:57pm.
I'd take him over anything we got running from either party. :)
Good for him!
Submitted by Newsbubba on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 6:59pm.
Hey NYT. KMAGYOYO.
The NYT Has A Central Motivation
Submitted by Avitar on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 7:11pm.
It is that Israel is America's strongest ally in the Middle East. The NYT has not been kind to anything good for Britain, America's strongest ally in Europe. The New York Times has for my life time been hostile to anything good for the United States. They have taken absurd positions at time to support things that hurt the American people.
The motivations for NYT is unimaginable due to the chaotic nature of the positions themselves but the two overarching themes are to be unhelpful and anti-American.
Netanyahu = Leadership. Present White House occupant = Appeasem
Submitted by Herbster on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 7:16pm.
Double excellent! Bravo, Netanyahu! Would be we had a leader of this stature and principle. Unfortunately, we have a timid, inexperienced leftist puppet who hates this country.
The nerve of this Zionist! BOYCOTT!
Submitted by SickofLibs on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 7:28pm.
I'm never shopping at Netanyahu.com again. Sure they have free shipping, but at what cost?
Just AWESOME!!!! This is
Submitted by Liberallies on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 7:53pm.
Just AWESOME!!!!
This is what others must do with a lot more frequency!!
Good for the Prime Minster of Israel!!!
damn straight it was
Submitted by dmacleo on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 9:06pm.
NYT PWND
As if I need more reasons to back Israel
Submitted by Unsane on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 8:07pm.
Yet another reason to love Israel. They have politicians who know exactly how much our media sucks.
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
So That's What Leadership Looks Like....
Submitted by bigdaddy on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 8:20pm.
...No equivocation, no blaming previous administrations, no excuse making...
Anti-Israel and anti-American
Submitted by sciborg3k on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 8:27pm.
The NYT, as well as the whole Inner Party of the 'rats - the polititians and propagandists - has become completely anti-American and anti-Israel, as well as anti-democratic. They are liars and socialist fascists through and through.
I wish we had Bibi as our president
Submitted by Dave. on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 8:36pm.
Instead, we are stuck with the rapidly expanding disaster that is the Kenyan/Indonesian/God-only-knows-where Muslim commie (from Hell?), who is relentlessly and ominously pounding this country into the ground like he was a pile driver.
-All because he hates America and everybody in it.
Bibi loves his country.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Well, thats the problem
Submitted by Boudin on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 8:51pm.
Maybe someone should remind the folks at the Times that Israel is America's strongest ally in the Middle East.
They hate America also
I don't blame him. I wish
Submitted by Slyrr on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 9:35pm.
I don't blame him. I wish Republican/Conservative politicians would take notes and follow his lead. Why in the world would anyone want to write for, or appear on, a liberal TV show or newspaper? Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to the degradation of being insulted by a room full of people who hate your guts and would be happy to see you dead?
When a liberal tries to put their arms around you, all they're really looking for is a good place to stick a knife. Our people have to accept this. The Democrat/Liberal media are nothing but a pack of snarling dogs and poo-flinging chimpanzees. And their so-called institutions of higher learning show about as much intelligence.
I wouldn't go within rifle range of any of them, and Israel's President is wise to steer clear of them. They abandoned truth and integrity ages ago, and it will be a glad day for this country and society in general when each and every one of these liberal news organizations goes out of business and depart to the dung heap of history.
Let's say BN had written a
Submitted by Jack Bauer on Sat, 12/17/2011 - 9:40am.
Let's say BN had written a piece. The online COMMENTS pages would be full of the liberal crazies attacking whatever he said.
Which I am sure was the intent.
Have you ever tried to read these comments in the NYTimes? It explains a lot about what passes for the leftist mind.
These people are truly NUTS. And I don't use the word inadvisedly.. It's quite disturbing to understand the depth of their psycho-pathology. They live in some alternate looniverse in which they're the smartest people on the planet.
The NYSlimes also PRE-MODERATES all comments. They don't believe in a free exchange of ideas -- only those with which they agree.
Take Krugman. I have noticed that even when Newsbusters mentions him on the same day as he writes something, you go to the dross to comment, and COMMENTS are already closed. Same day.
No. They just wanted him so they could lyingly say... see we are fair. Thank goodness Bibi refused to play their game.
All of the above Mr Obama? --- How about ALL OF THE BELOW, instead.
NYT
Submitted by Kleenex on Sat, 12/17/2011 - 11:28am.
Good call Netanyahu. The NYT is just like Obama, completely self absorbed with their own self importance. Only the beltway pundits and lefties bother to read it. It's bird cage liner for the most the country.
I refuse to read the NYT and
Submitted by serious1 on Sat, 12/17/2011 - 12:51pm.
when I'm in an airport and find one that was left behind, I quickly dispose of it so it can't corrupt another mind.
this was so awesome I had to comment again
Submitted by dmacleo on Sat, 12/17/2011 - 2:54pm.
thats all. :)
Going out of business?
Submitted by gmonsen on Sat, 12/17/2011 - 5:03pm.
Recently, the Grey Lady put its Regional Media Group up for sale to raise a needed $160mm or so to support staying in business a while longer. Not much left for them to sell and revenues continue to decline. I don't think they will last another decade unless Ruppert buys them out...
Bravo to Mr. Netanyahu! Glad
Submitted by helomech on Sat, 12/17/2011 - 5:19pm.
Bravo to Mr. Netanyahu! Glad to see a public smackdown against the Nitwit Times. Hope there's more coming to the Libstream media from others who refuse to played like pawns. Other politicians should take note-the world at large isn't wowed by you, this administration or this piss poor excuse for public media
Actually, he should have written an OBIT for the NY Slimes!
Submitted by NJRightWinger12 on Sat, 12/17/2011 - 5:29pm.
Since that lame-stream ragsheet is in its twilight years, or more like MONTHS, and is pretty much on its deathbed! Israel has been around for 3 000 years, and will last many more years, unless the libs at the NYS have their way! Who would YOU bet on, Net, who gave one of the most thrilling speeches by a foreign leader on US soil last year, or the Slimes, which bangs the drum of the beaten liberal message?
BRAVO!!!
Submitted by jdripper on Sun, 12/18/2011 - 12:11am.
Three standing ovations of Bravos....that was magnificent...
Jack