Not All Op-Eds Are Equal in the New York Times
May 24, 2012 13:57 by Simon Plosker
Could the New York Times possibly publish an opinion piece that didn’t paint Israel in the worst possible light? Seemingly not as column inches are given over to Yousef Munayyer in a piece damningly titled “Not All Israeli Citizens Are Equal”.
Sitting from his office in Washington DC, Munayyer begins:
I’m a Palestinian who was born in the Israeli town of Lod, and thus I am an Israeli citizen. My wife is not; she is a Palestinian from Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. …
Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport is on the outskirts of Lod (Lydda in Arabic), but because my wife has a Palestinian ID, she cannot fly there; she is relegated to flying to Amman, Jordan. If we plan a trip together — an enjoyable task for most couples — we must prepare for a logistical nightmare that reminds us of our profound inequality before the law at every turn.
Even if we fly together to Amman, we are forced to take different bridges, two hours apart, and endure often humiliating waiting and questioning just to cross into Israel and the West Bank. The laws conspire to separate us.
If the point of Munayyer’s article is to promote a view where Israel’s Arab citizens are treated unequally, then he has failed. The very fact that he takes a different bridge shows that Israeli Jews and Arabs are treated equally. The border crossing for Israeli citizens is just that. It defines Munayyer as an Israeli without prejudice as to whether he is Arab or Jewish.
Related content: The Australian’s Apartheid Cloud
As for the fact that Munayyer’s wife is Palestinian and does not have the same rights as her husband to live with him in Israel: We’ve heard the same charge only a few weeks ago in The Australian, which attempted to portray Israel as an apartheid state based on its citizenship laws. At that time, HonestReporting pointed out that any Israeli Jewish citizen would have the same problems marrying a resident of the Palestinian territories as an Israeli Arab.
In a very selective reading of history, Munayyer paints Israel as responsible for the Palestinian refugee problem and subsequent alleged discrimination, including an attack on the rights of Jews to immigrate to Israel. More revealing than what he says is what Munayyer omits. For example:
Frank Adam
11:25 pm
May 31, 2012
Join the club of those disappointed by the changes of the times we live through.
Chew the carpet on this one: Joe Stalin – admittedly to do down the Brtish in the Middle East – supported partition and allowed the Czechs to send Spits and infantry weapons to the nascent Israel fighting for its life in 1948.
We have reached a situation where most modern Conservatives would be classed as raving revolutionaries by pre-1914 standards and a lot of the Left have abandoned the proletariat as soft to support the Third World led by medieval Moslem clericalists willing to smash the industrialised World – as if that would improve it or still be able to feed 4X the population of 1950 !!!.
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StorminNorm
12:06 am
Jun 01, 2012
LISTEN….back in those days I would have accepted the support of the fuhrer if it would have helped………AND good old Joey….he loved the Jews soooo much that a few years later he was plotting to send them all to the gulag….we were actually saved by the interference of the Angel of Death….HIS!!!!
The only thing the arabs have contributed to modern civilization that I can see is death and destruction….eventually it will probably lead to theirs!!!
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m
12:27 am
Jun 01, 2012
Stormin:
“The only thing the arabs have contributed to modern civilization that I can see is death and destruction”
Yes, well, if there was a Nobel categories for expertise in suicide bombs, misogyny, revisionist history or terrorism techniques; I’m sure the arab world would have plenty of prize winners.
See, again proof we discriminate against the arab world.
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PAthena
4:27 am
Jun 01, 2012
The Arabs who call themselves “Palestinian” have stolen Jewish identity. On the origin of the names “Palestine” and “Palestinian:” In 135 A.D. the Roman Emperor Hadrian, after defeating the last Jewish rebellion under Bar Kochba, changed the name of Judea to “Palestina” in order to eradicate all memory of Judea and the Jews-he also outlawed Judaism and changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, Aelius being his gens name. From that time on, “Palestine” was synonymous with “land of the Jews” and “Palestinian” with “Jew.” That is why Great Britain was awarded the “Palestine Mandate” after World War I, to be the “homeland of the Jews.”Calling Arabs (non-Jews) “Palestinian” with phony h
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PAthena
4:31 am
Jun 01, 2012
(continued) ”Calling Arabs (non-Jews) “Palestinian” with phony history and propaganda are effects of the founding of the “Palestine Liberation Organization” (P.L.O.) by Gamel Nasser, ruler of Egypt, and the Soviet Union in Cairo in 1964.
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jacko
7:38 am
Jun 01, 2012
It is regretable that Arabs are unable to distinguish the truth from untruth. they even believe their own lies. I did not say that but the following by Prof
Philip Khuri Hitti Professor Semitics Columbia University did
“The admitted capacity of the Arabs to manufacture facts, to deceive themselves into accepting them and to work themselves up to a public passion over what is in fact a non existent emotion. ‘What the Arabs believe even if untrue has the same influence over them as if it were true” “
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StorminNorm
9:03 am
Jun 01, 2012
Or JACKO ….as a famous Israeli once said….”they never missed a opportunity to miss an opportunity!!!!”
….and thereby hangs the tale!!!!
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m
5:47 pm
Jun 01, 2012
“they never missed a opportunity to miss an opportunity!!!!””
And that holds true to this day.
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New York Times Op-Ed Index
9:05 am
Jun 02, 2012
[...] such as the Arab refusal to accept Israel and terrorism that led to the situation he described. Honest Reporting noted that another recent article in the Australian had made similar charges and suggests that this might [...]
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montlasky
5:02 pm
Jun 03, 2012
Why should the NY times be any different from any other city rag trying to peddle it’s wares?
If the oped is anti Israel, for whatever reason and by whom ever the author, then that’s news, indesputible truth by all accounts. Why? Because the abysmal ignorance of the authors and their audiences creates this ignorant demand to sell their papers and the more distorted the reporting the more acceptable the distorted news bias is received by the reading public. Why? It’s all a matter of demographics! Who is reading and enjoying this garbage and even worse, who is writing it? Take note of the particular author of this op-ed and his background and origins. Pathetic but real!
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