I knew what I was in for when I saw Ethan Bronner's byline on the "Israel Objects to U.S. Construction Demands" piece in Tuesday's The New York Times. I mean, he is part of the Israel Hasbara Committee and has a son in the IDF.
Before we get to his piece, I'd like to point out what the Time's ombudsman Clark Hoyt had to say about Bronner's outside influences on his supposed objective reporting.
A Father At The Times, A Son In The IDF
by Jonathan Mark, The Jewish Week, 2/9/2010
http://www.thejewishweek.com/...
According to Hoyt, Bronner, a "superb" reporter who has been writing about Israel and Palestinians for 27 years, properly informed Bill Keller, the Times executive editor, of his 20-year-old son’s recent enlistment, the editors discussed the situation, and Bronner remains on the job.
Hoyt says that Bronner has to go, "find a plum assignment for him somewhere else," at least while his son is in uniform.
Keller, in an online response, told Hoyt, "we will not be taking your advice. ... Every reporter brings to the story a life — a history, relationships, ideas, beliefs. And the first essential discipline of journalism is to set those aside, as a judge or a scientist or a teacher is expected to do, and to follow the facts. [To] prevent any appearance of bias, would you say we should not send Jewish reporters to Israel? If so, what about assigning Jewish reporters to countries hostile to Israel? What about reporters married to Jews? Married to Israelis? Married to Arabs?" Bronner is married to an Israeli. "Ethical judgments that start from prejudice lead pretty quickly to absurdity, and pandering to zealots means cheating readers who genuinely seek to be informed."
That last sentence in Keller's quote defending Bronner would actually become a prophecy of the absurdity Bronner would commit last Tuesday.
Shall we?
Israel Objects to U.S. Construction Demands
By Ethan Bronner, The New York Times, 3/16/2010
http://www.nytimes.com/...
On a day of scattered disturbances by Palestinians in East Jerusalem, news emerged that Israel was moving ahead with a second building project there. A notice on the Web site of the Israel Lands Authority invited bids on construction of 309 new homes in the Jewish suburb of Neve Yaakov, in northeast Jerusalem.
Stop right there, suburb? Did Bronner really call the illegal settlement of East Jerusalem a suburb? This is a classic propaganda technique, right in the second paragraph, it is a lie of omission.
Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention:
"The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
Bronner omitted this fact, which is never mention in his piece, anywhere, that international law under the Geneva Convention clearly states that is an illegal tactic by Israel. Instead of mentioning that, Bronner uses the non-descript tag of "suburb" misinforming readers, who want to be informed per Keller's explanation of why Bronner still has his desk assignment.
He also glosses over the fact that the whole point of this exercise is to unify Jerusalem under Israel control so that East Jerusalem will never become the capital of the Palestinians under a two-state solution.
Orwell would be proud with his use of words here, since lying in subtext and omission is the greatest lie in propaganda.
"They are demanding that Jews not be allowed to build in East Jerusalem," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Israel Radio. "We cannot bar only Jews from building in a certain section of the city. Can you imagine if they told Jews in New York they could not build or buy in Queens?"
This argument is so ridiculous it's amazing Bronner didn't challenge it since he lives in the Big Apple.
Now, say the Manhattan Tribe still had land in New York City that by treaty was only for them and the USA still technically occupied the land in the name of peace. Let's saw they live on a reservation in Kew Gardens, which is in Queens to get this metaphor really rolling like the 7 during rush hour.
Now say the Manhattan are only allowed to build in Kew Gardens, because they are not allowed to build anywhere else in New York City, or the rest of the country for that matter. Not only that, but the USA has built a wall around Kew Gardens to make sure the Manhattan never leave, basically making their neighborhood in Queens a large open prison that they are not allowed to leave, much less work, outside of.
Now, no one, much less a Jew in New York, would be allowed to build in Kew Gardens or appropriate the land due to the legality behind the Geneva Convention. Be ye Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Zoroaster or really don't care for the God thingy, No one could build in Kew Gardens per Article 49.
So when Avigdor Lieberman said "they" are demanding "Jews" not be allowed to build in East Jerusalem, he is also using propaganda techniques that not only promote a false premise, but hides even the local situation behind a wall of rhetoric.
"The International Community based on Rule of Law (They) are demanding that Israeli citizens (Jews) not be allowed to build in East Jerusalem due to Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention."
FTFY Lieberman.
I have already destroyed the second part of your argument, so let's move on.
Since Israel has annexed East Jerusalem, Israeli officials say, a request to scrap Jewish building projects there is both legally unfeasible and a betrayal of the mandate of the current government, elected on a platform of keeping Jerusalem united under Israeli sovereignty.
The omission here is how outrageously against international law this process is, and to hide behind the mandate of the current government means nothing against globally accepted rule of law and basic human rights.
As long as Israel is the occupying nation-state of East Jerusalem they are not allowed to build or transfer it to their sovereign domain per the Geneva Convention.
"We must tell the American government that there are things we can do and things we cannot do," said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, reflecting the government’s thinking. "Freezing building in East Jerusalem is one of those things we cannot do."
Again, Bronner fails to bring up how this flies in the face of International Law and let's it pass as if facts on the wall, an unstoppable process for which no one is accountable.
So sadly, Time's ombudsman Clark Hoyt concerns that Eric Bronner would become a biased promoter of prejudice facts and spin were not only well-founded, but proved to be prophecy in one of the biggest propaganda pieces in Old Grey Lady since Judith Miller.
Makes one wonder why The New York Times even has an ombudsman in the first place, and why propaganda for another nation-state is considered news that's fit to print.