The New York Times painted a picture of Israel on a legislative rampage: passing three laws in a row that together form a pattern of nightmarish oppression and abuse.
Just one problem: of the three NYT claims, one was wildly misleading and another blatantly untrue: revealing the NYT to be more driven by agenda and narrative than by journalism.
And the NYT managed to do it all in under 280 characters: via this Tweet which references an accompanying article.
On Monday, Israel's Parliament blocked critical groups from speaking in schools. On Tuesday, it cut off Palestinian access to the Supreme Court in land disputes. On Wednesday, it barred gay couples from having children through surrogacy. https://t.co/u31stxBIbn
— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) July 21, 2018
Part of our mission at HonestReporting is to not only react to the news, but to also pro-actively and directly address news audiences. That’s why on July 17, several days before the NYT article of July 21, I was on television at i24 News discussing two of these three topics.
Let’s take a look at the NYT’s claims, one by one:
1. Breaking the Silence Law
On Monday, Israel’s Parliament blocked critical groups from speaking in schools.
The law in question is informally referred to as the Breaking the Silence law, after the NGO of that name: an organization that purports to be a watchdog over proper IDF behavior. This law requires that NGOs deemed to be acting against the IDF and delegitimizing Israel will be prevented from accessing public schools and their students.
There is room for debate over whether such a law supports the values of public discourse, but one thing is clear from a legal perspective: this law does not violate free speech as the NYT phrasing seems to imply.
There is a difference between free speech (the freedom to say what you want) versus requiring someone else to give you a platform.
This is true not just in Israel, but generally in democracies around the world. For example, a 1987 Supreme Court case in the United States (Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578) ruled (in so many words) that a creationist group has the freedom to preach that Darwinism is wrong, but may not force a public school to give access to its students. (There are additional intricacies to Aguillard beyond the scope of this topic.)
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Free speech was not the only problem with the misleading NYT article: Breaking the Silence (BtS) is hardly a “critical group” but actually a widely discredited organization that is predominantly not supported in Israel, even among many on the political left.
BtS receives 65% of its funding from foreign governments and according to NGO Monitor, “a number of funders made their grants conditional on the NGO obtaining a minimum number of negative ‘testimonies.'”
BtS donors expect and demand accusations that may lead to the imprisonment IDF soldiers. Does this create a financial incentive to be dishonest? Last November, BtS spokesman Dean Issacharoff was caught lying in court, in an attempt to bring a case against IDF soldiers. And the majority of BtS testimonies are not only anonymous but also unsubstantiated and contested by eyewitnesses.
A responsible watchdog, whether over army, police, government…or even media, is an important part of any democracy.
But Breaking the Silence is something else entirely.
2. Access to the Supreme Court
On Tuesday, [Israel] cut off Palestinian access to the Supreme Court in land disputes.
This is just blatantly untrue.
In the past, land disputes involving Palestinians were referred directly to Israel’s Supreme Court. This is a highly unusual state of affairs for any legal system. The new law requires that for now on these cases begin in the District Court. However, parties still have the option to appeal to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court still has the power to accept those appeals.
3. Gay surrogacy
On Wednesday, [Israel] barred gay couples from having children through surrogacy.
This was the only accurate statement NYT made. It is a source of heated debate in Israeli society, and sparked strikes and protests throughout the country.
So the New York Times scores one out of three for accuracy.
“All the News That’s Fit to Print,” plus a few things that aren’t.
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