MARILYN PENN: THE NEW YORK TIMES COVERED THE WRONG MARCH….SEE NOTE
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ON MY WAY HOME FROM THE RALLY ON SUNDAY I STOPPED BY AT ANOTHER DEMONSTRATION IN FRONT OF THE UN THAT THE TIMES MISSED. A LARGE GROUP OF COLD, WET, BRAVE TIBETANS WERE DEMONSTRATING AGAINST CHINA’S OPPRESSION. THEIR SIGNS WERE SMUDGED BY RAIN BUT THE MESSAGE WAS CLEAR….TOO BAD NOBODY HEARD…ANYWHERE….WHERE WAS RICHARD GERE? RSK
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Exclusive: The ‘Times’ Covered the Wrong Protest March
In a glaring example of its anti-Israel bias, Monday’s New York Times gave prominent coverage to a march on Sunday by 40 Israelis through an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem (‘March on East Jerusalem Stirs Anger as Envoy Visits’ 4/26/2010) while purposely refusing to cover a Sunday demonstration of thousands of New Yorkers to protest the Obama administration’s policies towards Israel.
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Organized by Beth Gilinsky, head of the Jewish Action Alliance, the Break The Silence Rally was held in front of the Israeli Consulate and drew enormous crowds despite the constant rain. A taped message by former mayor Ed Koch highlighted his enormous chagrin at both the reversal in this administration’s attitude towards a staunch ally and the craven reaction of liberal Jewish legislators to the vitriolic calumny leveled against the Jewish state. At his most recent visit, Bibi Netanyahu was denied any White House photo-ops and was left to his own devices at dinnertime; you don’t need to be a diplomat to understand the language of a slap in the face. The startling American equivalency of Israel’s plans for a housing development in Jerusalem with the notion of putting our troops in harm’s way was the coup de grace for all previous statements relating to the recent dust-up in which strong U.S. rebukes were leveled against Israel as the party responsible for nothing less than dashing prospective peace talks. Who knew the power of condominiums on the international scene? Who could have predicted that Israel’s real estate plans would outweigh Iran’s nuclear plans in America’s consideration of its foreign policy concerns?
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The Obama administration has refused to approve any of Israel’s military requests, and the Pentagon has not announced any weapons contracts with Israel since the administration was installed. In a letter to Hillary Clinton signed by 76 senators, the following observation is noted:  “…In a reversal of sixteen years of policy, Palestinian leaders are refusing to enter into direct negotiations with Israel. Instead, they have put forward a growing list of unprecedented conditions. By contrast, Israel’s prime minister stated categorically that he is eager to begin unconditional peace negotiations with the Palestinians.†Even the jaundiced Times has agreed that the Obama administration represents a sea change in ourpolicy towards Israel. Â
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Ironically,the Times has also offered no editorial comment on last week’s threat by an American convert to Islam named Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee to the creators of South Park that they would end up like Theo Van Gogh , the Dutch filmmaker stabbed to death in 2004 for daring to criticize Islam. Nor did the paper that champions free speech editorialize on the reaction of Comedy Central, which instantly capitulated to this threat by censoring the South Park episode that satirized all other major religions and removing it from the Internet. It’s important for Americans to understand that scapegoating Israel for the unwillingness of Muslim leaders to accept a Jewish state in their midst gives power to the forces of radical jihad which are operating in America as well as in the Middle East. In addition to the growing number ofmurders and conspiracies to bomb tunnels, bridges and subways perpetrated by Muslim jihadists, we have the softer violence of suppression of speech on campus, in textbooks, in school curricula, on television, on the Internet and in our pre-eminent newspaper of record. For the record, thousands of Americans stood up proudly for the peace-seeking, democratic state of Israel on Sunday, April 25, 2010. The New York Times never saw it happen.
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FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Marilyn Penn is a writer in New York who can also be read regularly at Politicalmavens.com.
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