Alison Weir

...Barely mentioned in the mainstream US or UK media, however, were statements made by Tony Blair in his testimony before the Inquiry referring to the involvement of Israel in the decision for war....

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Ethan Bronner on Gaza: Investigative Journalism or IDF Stenography?

Currently, the New York Times has only one bureau to cover Israel-Palestine. This is in Israel and its chief editor, Ethan Bronner, consistently shows Israeli bias, as I've noted in a number of previous postings (even apart from the fact that his son has recently entered the Israeli military). The Times' other major correspondent, Isabel Kershner, is an Israeli citizen.

New York Times Editor Bill Keller, in defending his decision to retain Bronner as their bureau chief despite Bronner's conflict of interest and profoundly flawed track record, writes that he feels Bronner's intimate family ties with Israel "supply a measure of sophistication about Israel and its adversaries."

If the Times actually does want full, unbiased reporting on this region (there is little to indicate this, but let's imagine it is so), it is essential that the Times also have bureaus in the Palestinian Territories; ideally, one in the West Bank and one in Gaza, headed by people with equal "sophistication" about Palestine and its adversaries.

Fortunately for the Times, a journalist with an excellent track record for journalism in the area and, no doubt, considerable "sophistication," is now available. Jared Malsin, a Jewish-American 2007 Yale graduate, was until recently the chief English editor at Ma'an News, the largest independent news organization in the West Bank and an excellent source of news.

Apparently because of this, Malsin was recently denied re-entry by Israel, incarcerated for about a week, and deported by Israeli authorities.

I suggest that the Times now explore hiring Malsin or someone else with equivalent knowledge and skills to head up a West Bank bureau. While I realize that some in the Israeli government might attempt to prevent Malsin from assuming this post, I expect that the Times, unlike Ma'an, has the connections and the clout to overcome an Israeli attempt to censor their hirees. If Israel attempted to do this, I would hope the Times would consider it front-page news, and that the editorial page would comment on it, as well.

If Malsin has already taken a position elsewhere, I suspect that he could recommend other informed and skilled individuals for this position. I would be delighted to assist the Times in such a search and would be happy to suggest numerous people who could direct them to excellent candidates for such a position.

Others may wish to suggest this to Mr. Keller as well. After all, the Times ethics guidelines state: "In keeping with its solemn responsibilities under the First Amendment, our company strives to maintain the highest standard of journalistic ethics" and maintains, "our goal is to cover the news impartially."

How better to fulfill their solemn responsibility to report the news impartially than to have bureaus in both Israel AND in Palestine, staffed with people either with no close connections to either society, or by people with equally deep connections to both?

(Of course, Malsin, as far as I'm aware, has no familial connections to Palestinian society and much more fits into the first category; in that respect, he doesn't even come close to balancing Bronner. I am suggesting Malsin because of his track record at Ma'an; however, there are Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans who would also be excellent, perhaps even superior choices. My main point is to begin the discussion.)

In the meantime, until the Times follows its own ethics guidelines, I suggest that people who wish to be well-informed on Israel-Palestine turn to Ma'an News, the International Middle East Media Center (less well-funded than Ma'an but also an excellent source of information), and our own news blog. A valuable monthly resource is the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

As the Times rarely tells readers, Americans are major funders of Israel. We'd better know how it's using our money.

#

Mr Keller can be reached at

executive-editor@nytimes.com
212.556.1234

*

FYI: A new discussion of Bronner by Lysandra Ohrstrom at Huffington is well worth reading

As I predicted, the New York Times management is ignoring evidence of Ethan Bronner's Israel-centric reporting and is, so far, keeping him on as their Jerusalem bureau chief.

Editor Bill Keller explains in a blog posting that the Times' "rulebook leaves us wide latitude," that they're not going "to capitulate to the more savage partisans," and that they're not even going to listen to their own ombudsman, Readers Representative Clark Hoyt, who, in a column to be published in tomorrow's paper, recommends moving Bronner:

But, stepping back [Clark writes], this is what I see: The Times sent a reporter overseas to provide disinterested coverage of one of the world’s most intense and potentially explosive conflicts, and now his son has taken up arms for one side. Even the most sympathetic reader could reasonably wonder how that would affect the father, especially if shooting broke out.

...this is not about punishment; it is simply a difficult reality. I would find a plum assignment for him somewhere else, at least for the duration of his son’s service in the I.D.F.

Keller claims, referring to Hoyt's column, "...everyone you interviewed for your column concurs that Ethan Bronner is fully capable of continuing to cover his beat fairly."

Actually, Hoyt, who perhaps due to lack of personal expertise in the region praises Bronner's "excellent track record," references only three interviews with people concerning Bronner's work (other than with Keller himself): one was quoted significantly out of context and the other two were former Times' journalists.

Keller neglects to mention that in his column Clark writes that he had heard from 400 readers, "...many of them convinced that Bronner could not continue in his current assignment," and who, quite likely, would have given a substantially different assessment of Bronner's work if Clark had bothered to interview them.

Interestingly, Clark reports that Bronner had told him that his son "joined in late December for roughly a year of training and six months of active duty before he returns to the United States for college." Normally, Israeli soldiers are required to serve in the Israeli reserves for decades. Did Bronner fail to inform Mr. Clark of this fact? Or did Mr. Clark choose not to inform readers of it?

Not surprisingly, the Times again chooses to ignore our studies demonstrating the Times' distortion on this issue. Similarly, there is no mention of the excellent book "Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East," co-authored by distinguished Princeton Emeritus Professor Richard Falk detailing the Times' flawed coverage.

Apparently, Mr. Keller is unconcerned that skewed Times' coverage enables tragic and profoundly destructive US policies, destroying thousands of lives. Unlike Mr. Keller, some of us care. I wonder if we're the "savage partisans" to whom he refers.

Clark writes, "Nobody at The Times wants to give in to what they see as relentlessly unfair criticism of the paper’s Middle East coverage by people hostile to objective reporting."

While it's true that Bronner himself talks of "narratives," and Israel partisans oppose objective reporting,  I personally have been pleading for it for many years. The Times, sadly, seems to have little interest in giving it to us on Israel-Palestine.

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive of Haiti told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Jan. 27th that there had been reports of child trafficking and organ trafficking in Haiti...

CNN news report on this - "Traffickers targeting Haiti's children, human organs, PM says"

(CNN) -- Trafficking of children and human organs is occurring in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated parts of Haiti, killed more than 150,000 people, and left many children orphans, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said Wednesday.

"There is organ trafficking for children and other persons also, because they need all types of organs," Bellerive said in an exclusive interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour....

Updated on Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 02:56PM by [Alison Weir

It's not difficult to predict that the Times will refuse to acknowledge Bronner's conflict of interest, despite the paper's own ethics guidelines and journalism ethics in general, which state: "Even the appearance of obligation or conflict of interest should be avoided." It is sad that places like the Times so often violate the noble sentiments proclaimed in a multitude of journalistic ethics statements, and that mainstream critics so rarely call them on it when the violations concern Israel-Palestine...

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Updated on Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 07:11AM by [Alison Weir

... The announcements for his upcoming talks on college campuses also state that Bronner will "explore the challenges faced by a journalist covering two distinctly opposing narratives." The announcements fail to reveal his intimate connection to one. I find Bronner's "two narratives" approach to Israel-Palestine strange. The reality is that there are objective facts to obtain and report. In this case, the reality is that the Israeli army, the fourth most powerful on earth, is, in the words of Israeli soldiers, 'dominating, expelling, starving and humiliating an entire people.' And Mr. Bronner's son has just signed on...

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The Electronic Intifada has just broken the story that the son of Ethan Bronner, the New York Times bureau chief for Israel-Palestine, has just joined the Israeli army. This is obviously a serious conflict of interest... my conversation with Bronner... other sources of news.

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...at this point my feeling is that the Israeli team is most likely there largely for humanitarian reasons. At the same time, of course, I suspect that the IDF and Israeli government are fully aware of their use in pro-Israel publicity, as well... while I'd like to think the best of the Israeli relief team in Haiti, I'd feel better about them if they'd use their media fame to speak out about Gaza, as some Israelis have done... In terms of the question of organ trafficking and theft in Haiti... I would tend to worry about this more in the future – when media attention is averted, yet the desperately poor remain.

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Quite a bit has happened since I wrote my articles. It turns out that Israel's chief pathologist and one of its highest paid public officials, at least, had admitted on tape in 2000 that he had taken numerous body parts from Palestinians (as well as from Israelis). I'll write more about this later, especially since the Israeli propaganda apparatus in the US and in Israel is attempting to bury this/spin it away. Also, additional stories have been published on the issue. I'll start posting some of them here:

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March for Humanity

In September 2003 hundreds of American elders of all ethnicities and backgrounds will march on Israel in a nonviolent quest for human rights, for global peace and stability, and for a reversal of the world’s wild drive into an ever-darkening future.

They will be joined by others from around the world determined to fulfill their obligation to their consciences and to their children, and by an equal number of Israeli citizens seeking an end to their government's violent oppression of their Palestinian sisters and brothers.

Together, this group of peaceful marchers -- who have decided that in the final third of their lives they will, briefly, trade comfort for discomfort, security for inconvenience -- will join together to save innocent lives that would otherwise be lost. With their reading glasses and stiff knees, graying hair and sore feet, this peace brigade will march on behalf of justice for Palestinians, peace for the world, and the end of a brutal and brutalizing system for Israelis.

For almost three years the Palestinian people have been pleading for an international presence to decrease the tragically escalating violence. Such an international presence would have saved lives of both Israelis and Palestinians, would have left children walking today who will now be forever crippled, would have left mothers happy who will now forever grieve.

Israel and the United States, however, inexplicably blocked the United Nations from providing such a life-saving body. But then, from around the world, individuals – some old, most very young – began to flow into Palestine to fill this need. They did what the world should have done, but didn’t, and some of them were beaten, imprisoned, maimed, and, finally, killed. Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall took the place the world should have filled, and paid with their lives for our negligence.

Now we have decided that it is our turn. No more will we allow our children’s courage to dwarf our own, our children’s vision of a compassionate world to be crushed by the forces of evil that we have feared to oppose. It is our time to step forward, and we will not be crushed.

Let the Israeli military – blithe destroyer of small bodies, breaker of young bones, crusher of sweet spirits – face a battalion of seasoned senior soldiers, veterans of life, survivors of youth.

Let the Israeli military -- who so courageously crushed young Rachel, who with such bravery shot 21-year-old Tom in the back of the head, who with such skill daily train their American-supplied sniper scopes on ragged, rock-throwing children -- let this valiant vanguard of violence now face a thousand nonviolent marching mothers, fathers, grandmothers and aunts, as the world’s cameras roll and history’s note-takers look on, ready to transcribe Ariel Sharon's attempt to stop the unstoppable.

Let the world – and particularly the American public – finally awake to our responsibility, and to our power. Let us bring an end to this carnage. It is long past time, and no one else will do it.

Please join us.

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The latest is the arrest of Bil'in leader Abdallah Abu Rahmah. Here is a message from ISM about what people can do...

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Yesterday people dressed as Mary, Joseph and shepherds wandered around Portland, Oregon, singing a revised version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem," handing out flyers and Bethlehem cards...

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This is an extremely important documentary, and one that it is unlikely we'll see on PBS, CNN, Fox, etc. The documentary was apparently broadcast on Britain's channel 4 on Nov. 16, 2009 and can currently be viewed on Youtube. The text of an accompanying pamphlet is below:

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I guess I should make it official: we have renamed our daily news site and are now calling it "Israel-Palestine: The Missing Headlines"

The purpose is, as always, to give the news that the mainstream media (and numerous not so mainstream ones) are largely omitting. The reports are mostly from the Palestinian, Israeli, and Jewish press (which covers Israel, the Lobby, and related subjects extensively), with additional reports from various NGOs, the UN, eyewitnesses in the area, etc.

We also try to include links to additional information, to make the context clearer to those new to this issue.

We seem to often be finding stories that others have missed, so I suggest that people check the site regularly. Even more important, please tell others about it.

Please help spread the word!

We have created small business-sized cards giving our website (and statistics on deaths and aid to Israel), which people can order to disseminate widely. I always carry these in my pocket, to give out, place on car windshields, etc.  I feel that when more Americans visit out website, our news site, and the numerous other excellent websites that we point people toward, the media misinformation and omission on Palestine will be overcome and Americans will demand new policies.

You can order these cards on our site directly or by sending an email to orders@ifamericansknew.org -- tell us how many you want and give us your mailing address. If you can accompany this with a donation, that would be great -- we request $2 per 50 cards, plus postage.

Also, please join our extremely low-volume email list!!

Don't worry -- we send very few messages. However, when we have new materials or there is something critical that we feel you would want to know about, we send the information out on this list. (Also, this is the way that we alert people when I'm giving talks in their state.)

Since we have several new projects coming up soon, we hope you'll join this now!

When you do a search of Google maps for "Israel," you get a map that shows the entire area of mandate Palestine as Israel, despite the fact that the West Bank and Gaza Strip are not part of Israel and are, in fact, the Palestinian Territories -- or, to be more precise, the Palestinian Occupied Territories, as the UN, the International Red Cross, and others refer to them. Similarly, when you do a search of Google maps for "Palestine" or "Palestinian," you only get Palestine, Texas. There is no result that gives the Palestinian Territories.

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Yesterday, I discovered that Obama had signed a presidential memo changing a policy in which Israel, like almost all other nations, has been required to pay a protective tariff on dairy products exported to the U.S.

This tariff is to protect American farmers, who have been devastated in recent years, many losing their farms. This year has been particularly disastrous.

I phoned numerous officials at the Agriculture Department, the US Trade Representative, and the various dairy farmers' organizations and discovered that no one had even heard about this change.

While the Israeli media have covered it, the American media have been completely silent on it.

I think people need to know about this policy change -- created through an almost completely covered-up presidential memo -- and so I wrote an article about it.

I think that American dairy farmers should be informed about this; I hope people will help get this information out.

Even people who are opposed to protective tariffs, I assume, dislike cover-ups and policies that smack of special interest favoritism.

I just received a phone call from Steve Schram, Director of Broadcasting for Michigan Radio. On the phone also was Rick Fitzgerald, from the University of Michigan Office of Public Affairs. It was clear that Mr. Schram did not want to discuss Michigan Radio's previous actions, and I decided not to push this. The main point is that they are now willing "to consider" an ad from us. I told him the likely content of such an ad -- basically, what we requested before -- and he agreed "to consider it." I said that I would submit this before the end of the day, and he said that he would respond quickly. I asked that this be by the end of the week, at the latest, and he agreed. I suspect that all the phone calls and emails that the station has been receiving from throughout Michigan and all over the US is the reason that management has finally been forced to do the correct thing.

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Updated on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 07:33AM by [Alison Weir

...Michigan Radio's bizarre failure to respond to my phone calls and emails. This conduct is arrogant, and -- particularly now that it is sending misleading emails about me to the public -- highly unethical.

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Updated on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 05:18AM by [Alison Weir

Weeks ago our organization tried to place an ad with NPR's affiliate in Ann Arbor, Michigan Radio, about my speaking tour in Michigan. (They officially call this a "sponsorship" -- for $1,000 you receive about 10 announcements.) Michigan Radio is a service of Michigan Public Media, the public broadcasting company at the University of Michigan, and consists of the following stations, licensed to the Regents of the University of Michigan: * WUOM 91.7 Ann Arbor/Detroit * WVGR 104.1 Grand Rapids * WFUM-FM 91.1 Flint Michigan Radio refused our ad, saying that our organization was "political," even though: * We are a 501c3 educational organization -- our website provides facts on Israel-Palestine and does not advocate for or against any particular parties, candidates, or bills before Congress; * It had run ads from the Jewish Federation of Detroit, which states on its website that it advocates for Israel; * I am told that it has run ads from the Ann Arbor chapter of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, which lobbies for Israel and other issues. (Since Michigan Radio management has not returned my phone calls I have been unable to confirm this with them).

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