I have not been the biggest fan of Ethan Bronner of the New York Times. The reportage by Bronner, who spent the last four years as the Jerusalem bureau chief of the New York Times, was a mixed bag. Though he was clearly a talented reporter who often did some good work highlighting the realities of the Palestinian war on Israel, he was also prone–as virtually every other member of the foreign press corps in Israel–to take Palestinian claims at face value and to omit the context of Palestinian rejectionism from accounts of diplomatic and political encounters there.
Nevertheless, Bronner spent the last two years under constant fire, not so much for his role in the Times’s blatant bias against Israel (for which the editors back in New York were chiefly responsible anyway), but because his son served in the Israel Defense Force. Once the news came out about Bronner’s son serving in the army like most Jewish boys his age in Israel, he was subjected to withering criticism from the pro-Palestinian left as well as a nasty column from Clark Hoyt, the paper’s public editor at the time. Now that Bronner’s leaving the post after a four-year term, the story is being recycled, but the notion that he was compromised by his son’s service is just as absurd today as it was then.
Hoyt took the position, as did many cheerleaders for the Palestinians, that: “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.”
The problem with this formulation is the assumption that the Times ought to regard an ongoing war to extinguish the life of the Jewish state with complete objectivity. But that is no more reasonable than to expect any American journalist with relatives in the U.S. military to have no opinions or stake in attacks on the United States or its forces abroad. While news reporters ought not to take part in partisan politics or advocacy on issues related to their beats, the notion that they should take no position on wars between Western democracy and Islamist terrorists extends rules about objectivity beyond reason. Those who are neutral about the idea that it is okay to single out the one Jewish state in the world for destruction should be accused of a far worse sin than a lack of complete objectivity.
Just as American reporters can and do report stories that can put the government and/or the U.S. military in a bad light while still acting as loyal citizens of this country, so, too, can any person living in Israel report honestly while not choosing to remain completely aloof from that country’s war of survival. Having a son in the IDF did not make Bronner a stooge of the Israeli government.
On the contrary, the vast majority of the foreign press contingent in Israel who proclaim neutrality about the conflict but treat Arab terrorism with kid gloves and assist the delegitimization of the democratic state in which they are living are the ones who deserve censure for bias. Whatever Ethan Bronner’s sins, at least he was not guilty of that. Let’s hope his successor is no worse than him.
The entire episode smacks of antisemitism. It doesn't seem that any of the Palestinian string reporters or photographers are questioned to see if they have relatives in the PA, Fatah, or even Hamas. But a Jewish family with children in the IDF are suspect. Is it because in their own revolting way the NYT is basically saying..you know those Jews can't trust a word they say….
We are familiar with the kind of reporting Israel gets from the NY Times. What is new and wonderful about this story is that the reporter's son has chosen to serve in the Israeli army. That's wonderful, touching, deeply moving- isn't it? Despite his father and the NYTimes, this young man has gotten to know the real deal. He has recognized something in our country worth fighting, perhaps even risking his life, for. Doesn't that make us feel good? Wouldn't you want to hug him, if you met him? Almost the way you'd hug your own son? I would. Israeli sons go off to fight all the time. They have to. That is the sad truth. There's the rub. And when a stranger throws his lot in with Israel, in the most existential way possible, it must surely give us a boost. A friend of mine has a strange expression. "Good on him," she'd say – and I say it here, too. "Good on him."
Don’t know if you remember the Al Dura incident when France 2 reporter, French/Israeli Charles Enderlin used a Palestinian’s “report” to slander the IDF.
In the report besides claiming that the soldiers killed the boy they also showed the father’s wounds, which had healed by the time.
An Israeli Dr came forward to show that he had treated the father years before for those very same wounds which came from a Fatah/Hamas clash. After a long legal battle a French court has now judged that the Dr told the truth and that the media presentation was fictitious.
It is all the same in the media the world over.
If it isn’t Erlanger, it’s Bronner, if not him it’s someone else but the same result; bias and in some cases malicious bias.
"The problem with this formulation is the assumption that the Times ought to regard an ongoing war to extinguish the life of the Jewish state with complete objectivity." nObjectivity would be fine, I think, since it means impartially considering available information and then siding with the facts. You seem to mean "neutrality" — and the problem is that in today's media, objectivity and neutrality are also usually mixed up. As a result, news reports often contain facts and "narratives" all mixed up and "balanced" out.
Here's a hypothetical for you. Times reporter in Teheran has a son who is an Iranian citizen and serves in the Revolutionary Guard. Would you be ok with that–"most Muslim young men in iran serve in the RG"? Answer: in a pig's eye.
Here's a hypothetical for you, Vile Old Anti-Semite: are these two the same? (1) a reporter in Moscow who had a son who, during the height of the cold war, is a Soviet citizen who served in the Soviet equivalent of the Revolutionary Guard and (2) a reporter in the Paris who had a son who is a French citizen who served in the French equivalent of the Revolutionary Guard?
Bronner regularly covered up Israeli atrocities and the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children by the IDF. The notion that he was some kind of Palestinian sympathizer is the laugh of the day. His kid WAS IN THE IDF. How blatent do you want it? In The Third Reich – he would have been writing for Der Sturmer.
This is not even opinion; just pure lies and slander. Why not just claim Jews murder Christian babies and drink their blood, and be done with it?
Halevi
An American should only serve in the US armed forces.
Something tells me you only object to this perfectly legal act when Israel is involved.
The "real" source of media bias on Israel is liberalism, given the unshakably solipsistic mindset of liberals: to secure the right to certify victims –in order to reassure themselves of their own moral bona-fides– means they must always find a way somehow to claim moral responsibility. For them, support for Israel is America's most original sin, expiation for which is simplicity itself.
Bottom line, his hands aren't clean vis a via NYT agitprop against Israel. His claims of "I vas just followink orders" don't hold water. Of course his replacement Jodi Rudoren will be even worse. Since the NYT no longer even pretends it's not a fully operational state directed media arm of the White House, it would be absurd to imagine that we will see any fairness or improvement.
We have intense debates about the state of politics in America between opposing parties, but when it comes to Israel if anybody says one bad thing that is not absolutely pro Israel no matter what the Israelis do they are branded anti semitic. Give me a break. Jews make up about1.5% of the American population, but Israel takes up a huge percentage of Americas political life. Why is that? No other miniscule population dominates Americas attention like Israel does.No other group is given so much and asked for so little in return. It is only a matter of time when we get tired of being called anti semitic and become anti semitic. Israel needs to settle it's disputes with it's neighbors and stop insulting Americans of goodwill who have differing opinions and have reached conclusions that don't reflect those desired by the Israeli lobby.