James North
Mondoweiss / July 3, 2023
In a clear example of how the New York Times distorts the truth, a recent analysis insinuated there is not international consensus that Israeli settlements violate international law.
As Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank rises to the highest level in decades, The New York Times’s challenge also grows — how can the paper continue to distort, downplay, and skirt the truth? It is already regularly deploying one longtime tactic: insinuate that there are “two sides” about whether Israel is legally allowed to move hundreds of thousands of Jewish-only “settlers” into the occupied territory.
An NYT analysis the other day put the obfuscation right in the opening sentence:
Efforts by Israel to expand Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank have intensified this year, reflecting the agenda of the country’s right-wing government and prompting international condemnation of a practice that most countries say violates international law.”
That operative expression, “most countries,” appears in Times articles frequently. It is obviously meant to “both-sides” the issue, implying that the truth is unclear. What’s interesting, though, is that those dissenting countries are never named. But quick online research does yield at least some possibilities.
Here’s one clue: the seven nations that back in 2017 sided with the U.S. and Israel in the U.N. General Assembly and rejected the overwhelming majority view that Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was “null and void.” The seven nations were: two small countries in Central America, four tiny island nations in the Pacific, and Togo, in West Africa. These seven are prime candidates for the “some countries” title. None of the seven are known for their expertise in international law.
What if the New York Times applied the same both-sides-ism to, say, the 2020 U.S. election? Every report on Biden’s victory would also have to include the sentence: “millions of Americans still believe that Trump won.”
The Times won’t do that because it has established that the claim is false.
So instead of citing “most countries,” why doesn’t the Times quote genuine experts on international law? Or, even better, why doesn’t it simply state flatly that moving “settlers” into occupied territory is a violation — one that Israel has continued for decades?
The truth is not ambiguous. Times articles regularly cite Amnesty International reports about human rights violations elsewhere around the globe. Amnesty is only one of many groups and genuine experts who point out that
Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in occupied Palestinian territory and displacing the local population contravenes fundamental rules of international humanitarian law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: ‘The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.’
Meanwhile, broader Times coverage of the rising resistance in occupied Palestine continues to miss or cover up larger dangerous truths. Akiva Eldar is a distinguished veteran Israel journalist, a 77-year-old man who worked at Haaretz for 35 years and presently writes at Al-Monitor. In Israel, he’s been as prominent as Thomas Friedman is in the U.S., with the important distinction that he isn’t regularly wrong.
Akiva Eldar is worried. Here’s the headline on today’s column (in Haaretz):
Biden Take Note, There Are War Criminals in Israel’s Government
Eldar goes on to accuse Israel’s present government of “sabotaging” efforts by the military “to contend with the ultra-nationalist criminal behavior of settlers.”
The New York Times misses this angle entirely. Just imagine how U.S. opinion would change if someone like Akiva Eldar replaced Thomas Friedman on its editorial page.
(By contrast, this site’s Palestine Bureau has on-the-spot, up-to-the-minute coverage here.)
James North is a Mondoweiss Editor-at-Large
