The Gray Lady's Blind Spot The New York Times and its Israel Bias False Narrative: Is there a cultural problem at the paper of record? Getty Images False Narrative: Is there a cultural problem at the paper of record? By Richard A. Block Published January 22, 2015. Print Email The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not confined to the battlefield. It is also waged in the media, nowhere more prominently than in The New York Times. In “The Conflict and the Coverage,” a November column she “never wanted to write,” Margaret Sullivan, Times Public Editor, addressed “hundreds of emails from readers on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, complaining about Times coverage.” Her verdict: a “strong impression” “that The Times does everything it can to be fair in its coverage and generally succeeds.” She was wrong. A prime reason is the limited evidence Sullivan considered. “This column,” she wrote, “is restricted to news coverage and does not consider the opinion side offerings.” This ill-advised, self-imposed constraint doomed her effort from the outset. The Times’ “worldview” of the conflict is also revealed in its editorial page, headlines and storylines, and the Op-Ed columns it chooses to run. During last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas, Times Op-Eds, with rare exceptions, supported the Palestinian narrative: ““Israel’s Puppy, Tony Blair;” “Israel’s Bloody Status Quo;” “How the West Chose War in Gaza;” “Darkness Falls on Gaza;” “Israeli Self-Defense Does Not Permit Killing Civilians;” “Israel Has Overreacted to the Threats it Provoked;” “Zionism and Its Discontents;” “U.S. Should Stop Funding Israel, or Let Others Broker Peace;” “Israel’s Colonialism Must End;” “Unwavering Support of Israel Harms U.S. Interests, Encourages Extremism;” and “Eight Days in Gaza: A Wartime Diary: Life and Death in the Gaza Strip.” This is anything but fair. Times headlines were likewise revealing. When Hamas broke yet another ceasefire and resumed firing missiles at Israeli civilians, Israel defended itself. The Times declared obtusely, “Hamas Rockets and Israeli Response Break Ceasefire.” Others: “As Israel Hits Mosque and Clinic, Air Campaign’s Risks Come Home;” “Israelis Watch Bombs Drop on Gaza From Front-Row Seats;” “Questions About Tactics and Targets as Civilian Toll Climbs in Israeli Strikes;” “Foreign Correspondents in Israel Complain of Intimidation;” “Israeli Shells are Said to Hit UN School;” “Military Censorship in Israel;” “A Boy at Play in Gaza, a Renewal of War, A Family in Mourning;” “Israel’s Supporters Try to Come to Terms with the Killing of Children in Gaza;” “Israel Braces for War Crimes Inquiries on Gaza;” and “Resisting Nazis, He Saw Need for Israel. Now He Is Its Critic.” In failing to account for these and ignoring their cumulative effect, Sullivan’s assessment is hopelessly flawed. Sullivan defers meekly to senior editor, Joseph Kahn, on the charge of unbalanced coverage. “I hear that claim a lot” he said, from “people who are very well informed and primed to deconstruct our stories based on their knowledge…The Times does not hear this complaint from readers who are merely trying to understand the situation.” In other words, the lack of complaints of bias by people unequipped to perceive it invalidates criticism by readers who are informed! Sullivan’s statement, “Even something as seemingly objective as death tolls can become contentious” is naive. Most journalists credulously accepted Hamas’ claims as factual, reporting them without substantiation. Others, fearing reprisal, followed Hamas’ dictate: that all Palestinian casualties be described as “civilians,” teenage combatants as “children,” and every death as Israel’s fault. Again, Sullivan is silent. She misses the main point of Matti Friedman’s critiques in Tablet and The Atlantic, that “Most reporters in Gaza believe their job is to document violence directed by Israel at Palestinian civilians…The story mandates that they exist as passive victims…The international media’s Israel story is a narrative construct that is largely fiction.” Nonetheless, Sullivan implicitly confirms this by urging The Times to “Strengthen the coverage of the Palestinians.” Perhaps she had in mind an exchange between Times Opinion Page staff editor, Matt Seaton, and a pro-Israel media critic. After Tweeting out a link to a Times Op-Ed by an Arab citizen of Israel accusing it of institutionalized discrimination, Seaton was asked when the paper would report racism among Palestinians. He replied, “soon as they have sovereign state to discriminate with.” Thus, it comes as no surprise that, as Sullivan laments, many readers mistrust the motives and efforts of Times editors and reporters. But by ignoring editorial misjudgments in framing headlines and stories, Op-Ed publication decisions, and evidence of endemic bias against Israel in the media in general and The Times in particular, her suggestions are modestly helpful at best. Her assertion that The Times needs to do a better job of providing historical and geopolitical context is laudable, as is her suggestion that it should “find ways to be transparent and direct with readers about [its] mission in covering this area.” The ultimate question is whether The Times will transform its culture, given systemic problems that Sullivan, and senior editors she takes at face value, fail to acknowledge. Her most problematic recommendation is that The Times stop trying to show both sides of each story, creating the impression of “running scared“ or exhibiting “an excess of sensitivity.” Rather, its reporting should reflect “the core value of news judgment.” However, in covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict poor news judgment is The Times’ essential deficiency. In her widely praised book, “Buried By The Times,” Northwestern University Professor Laurel Leff excoriated “America’s most important newspaper” for its scandalously negligent coverage of the Holocaust. Max Frankel, Times Executive Editor from 1986 to 1994, called it “the century’s most bitter journalistic failure.” Someday, historians will render a similar judgment on its coverage of the Jewish State and will discern a clear connection between the two colossal miscarriages of justice. Richard A. Block is Senior Rabbi of The Temple – Tifereth Israel and President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. Top Stories Nominate Me! Nominate Me! Bibi Rolls the Dice Bibi Rolls the Dice Who's To Blame? Who's To Blame? The Jewish Daily Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, The Jewish Daily Forwardrequires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, our spam filter prevents most links and certain key words from being posted and The Jewish Daily Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason. Comments (5) Sort by: Date Rating Last Activity +14 's avatar - Go to profile @azkenamer · 1 hour ago I thought the article was very good and I was surprised to see it here. The Forward is pretty anti-Israel as well but that does not detract from the "good call" in publishing this piece. I agree with Charles. If the head of the reform movement things you are anti-Israel it is serious. But I feel there is some mysterious tension between leaders of the Forward and the Times. There are connections between the Forward and the Times. One of the people who posts here has a wife who is a Times reporter. Also when the David Brooks wrote an article about new kosher products and the a supermarket called the Pomegranate he was subjected to no less than four articles in the Forward attacking him. Weird. Attacking a supermarket and even trying to link this store in Brooklyn to the YU sex scandal??? Then oddly a puff piece on the Life of Jane Eisner appeared in the Times. Mysterious. What is really going on? Report Reply +5 's avatar - Go to profile @CpaHoffman · 8 hours ago If the chair of the Reform rabbis' association thinks you're anti-Israel, you're really anti-Israel. The NYT has pushed itself to believe that terror is only terror when the intended victim is not Jewish Report Reply +2 Gnarlodious's avatar - Go to profile Gnarlodious · 18 hours ago Sure I read the NYT, but its with the constant caveat that they are anti-Israel to the gills. meaning that they will never ever write one good thing about Israel. Once you know that, you can enjoy their neurosis as intended. Report Reply 1 reply · active 1 hour ago +3 's avatar - Go to profile Bob Allenick · 1 hour ago Crossword puzzle notwithstanding, I don't believe your acceptance of their "neurosis" (personally, I think of it as more of a "character disorder") is justification for supporting the paper. Think of the harm they are doing to Israel, the US and the world when all the poor schmucks who aren't sophisticated read their biased, hateful drivel and base their beliefs and opinions on it. Report Reply +1 's avatar - Go to profile Jacob Blues · 49 minutes ago I began reading the NY Times back in 1979 as a fifth grader and it was a staple in our house and later my own home till 2014. By then, I could no longer stomach its blatant anti-Semitic slant and cancelled my subscription and refused to provide monetary support for such stands. It's amazing how a newspaper that even published (finally) an article about the problems of rising anti-Semitism in Europe among Progressives, failed to look in the mirror to see how its own political stand echoed the argument it was making about others.