It is human to err, and journalists, being but human, err routinely. Some errors are just minor slips that do not alter the overall picture, but others offer a wide window into the total lack of understanding on the part of a reporter, and will fundamentally corrupt the reader’s perception of the issue.
One such is the insertion of a number 54 into the New York Times report of Israel’s capture in Jenin of the last pair of the escapees from what was considered a maximum security prison: “for many Palestinians, who see the fugitives as resistance fighters against a 54-year occupation, the jailbreak was a morale-boosting act of heroism.”
The mention of “54-year occupation” shows the Times’ monumental absence of understanding of the conflict and pinpoints the factual error in its editorial position that prevents it from adequately — that is, truthfully — covering it.
The implication of that number is simple: the “occupation” that Palestinians object to started in 1967; get back to the status quo ante by granting Palestinians a state in ’67 borders, and there will be peace and quiet in that part of the Middle East.
Which is, needless to say, total hogwash. There was no peace and quiet between 1948 when modern state of Israel came into being, and 1967 — the period in which the “territories” — the West Bank and Gaza — were administered by Jordan and Egypt respectively, when the Palestinians could have “the Palestinian state in ’67 borders” if they wanted it — except that they did not want to have it (nor did they see themselves as Palestinians rather than Arabs). Terrorist attacks on Israel from the self-governing and independent Palestinian territories were constant. The PLO — the Palestine Liberation Organization — was formed by Arafat in 1964, well before there was anything to “liberate,” if the Times‘ number is to be taken seriously. The goal then was the destruction of Israel, as it remains today: Gaza is no longer “occupied” but it attacks Israel with rockets; the multiple attempts to give back to the Palestinians the bulk of ’67 territories that followed the Oslo accords were dismissed by them as inadequate, mostly because they lacked the guarantee of the “right of return” of five million descendants of the refugees who were told in 1948 by the invading Arab armies to get out of the way of their advance that was supposed to crush the just-declared Israel. Today, those descendants are supposed to wipe out Israel by demographic means. Clearly, it’s not the ’67 lines for which Palestinians did not care in ’67, and continue to not care today. What is on Palestinians’ minds is still the destruction of Israel.
Yet, those ’67 lines are on the Times’ mind — which fully explains why its coverage of, and editorials on the Israel-Palestinian conflict are so totally off-mark.
Reality matters, Dear Editors of the New York Times. Pull your head out of the sand, and face reality. Switch from telling us fables to reporting facts. Your fairy tales of Palestinians seeing “occupation” not in the existence of Israel, but in its ’67 takeover of Judea and Samaria, won’t do.
“The new pravdatimes”, the flagship of antisemitism.
It, like the WP, downplayed and or ignored the Holocaust and Holodomor (Stalin’s mass murder of Ukrainians). And the NYT got a Pulitzer, like today for their FALSIFICATION of facts.
In fact, the New York Times, itself, didn’t recognize even Israel in its 48 lines.
The original publisher, Arthur Ochd Sulzberger, was a Classical Reform Jew, who believed that Judaism was strictly a religion and not a nation, and so was not entitled to a State ( See Buried by Times, by Laura Leif on how the Times “suppressed (“buried”) the news of the Holocaust, for this very same reason.)
They can they don’t wants
They can they don’t shan’t