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Jewish World Review July 18, 2002/ 9 Menachem-Av, 5762
Robert Leiter
How the Times wishes history unfolded
The troubling sentence came in the third paragraph of the story and referred
to the warrant the Israelis used, which we were told was written in Hebrew
and said that "the office was operating in violation of the Oslo accords,
though the Israeli Army has virtually obliterated the accords in recent
weeks by reoccupying seven West Bank cities that were under Palestinian
control."
There are a number of problems here, journalistic ones and factual ones. The
journalistic piece can be taken care of quickly: How could this sentence
appear in a reputable news article? This is either analysis or opinion - and
neither has a place in news reporting.
The fact that it is gratuitous and has no bearing on the story that's being
told seems almost too obvious to comment upon.
But these are mild transgressions when it comes to the matter of factual
inaccuracy. Let us begin with the matter of who did what when it comes to
the Oslo accords. Yasser Arafat has not held to any of the agreements he
initialed on Sept. 13, 1993, when on the White House lawn and in front of
the whole world he vowed to be a partner for peace. The infractions he has
incurred over nearly the last decade have been carefully tabulated, most
prominently by the Zionist Organization of America.
Even more important is the fact that no actions the Israelis have taken thus
far in their efforts to secure the safety of their citizens constitute an
infraction of the Oslo accords - except it seems in the eyes of several
reporters and editors at The New York Times. The truth here can be easily
verified by going to the Web site of the Israeli government, which has
posted
the full accords (www.israel-mfa.
gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH000c0).
Any interested party, especially journalists, who in the past have been known
to search for truth, can find all the verification necessary, particularly
in Article VIII on public order and security, and in Article XIII on the
redeployment of Israeli forces.
None of this would be of much consequence if it hadn't come to affect
subsequent Times stories, such as James Bennet's paean to the "glorious"
sufferings of the city and populace of Bethlehem, and Bennet and Joel
Greenberg's article on the death of the journalist Imad Abu Zahra. Kifner's
assertion has obviously been taken as fact, and has come to affect the tone
and substance of what other reporters have to say - especially as pertains
to these two stories, which appear to have no other point but their tone of
mournful reproach of the Israelis for their behavior.
If that were all that was at stake, it would also be of negligible concern.
But a recent profile of Howell Raines, the new managing editor of the Times,
in The New Yorker makes it clear that he wishes to remake the paper in the
image of his old-style liberalism. Already, there is less and less distance
between what appears on the op-ed pages and the comments made in news
reports, as in the case of the Kifner story.
It seems that the Times now wants to affect not only public opinion and
perceptions, but foreign policy as well.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
An article by John Kifner in the July 10 issue of The New York Times
contains the single most alarming and mendacious statement yet to appear in
media accounts of the recent warfare in Israel. The piece was about the
closing by the Israelis of Dr. Sari Nusseibeh's Jerusalem office. The government's contention is that Nusseibeh, often
described as a voice of moderation, was serving as an agent of Yasser
Arafat's Palestinian Authority and using his university office as a base.
JWR contributor Robert Leiter is Literary Editor for the Jewish Exponent in
Philadelphia. Comment by clicking here.