bs"d
Dear Zev Brenner, amv"sh
I would like to get in touch with Rabbi Spero the person you interviewed tonight Thursday June 13th at 9:00 pm TCN radio show) who led the demonstration in front of the Times office this past week . Is he aware that there has been a grassroots efforts going on this past week as well to Mr. Calame, of the New York Times asking him to inform its readers of the extremely grave conditions of the expellees from Gush Katif. This grassroots efforts was initiated by Buddy Macy VegiBud@aol.com who is actively working on the year anniversary Commemoration of Gush Katif. Buddy has kept track of the letter writers. This past week alone there were definitely over 40 letters and most probably many more, written to Mr. Calame. Yet instead of the Times reporting on the grave conditions of the expellees from Gush Katif they chose instead to post a very sympathetic article about the Gazans that were recently displaced due to Israel's response of the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. This article of July 12th page A12 of the International Section was entitled "Once Again, Gazans Are Displaced by Israeli Occupiers" by Steve Erlanger.
After reading this article in the Times it was apparent that this letter writing campaign wasn't going the way we had hoped. Jay Ticker jayt@nyhomes.org, wrote the following that might be of interest to Rabbi Spero.
Dear Robin
The Times has many features I really love. It's an institution that
can't easily be avoided. I read it on the internet or borrow a copy,
but haven't subscribed or purchased the paper in ages.
There's nothing new about bias and lies in the pages of the Times.
I just recalled the name of Walter Duranty, the Times Moscow
correspondent in the 1930s, who got a Pulitzer by glossing over the
deaths of millions in the Stalin's famines and purges with timeless
quotes like, "You can't make an omelet without braking eggs..." (New
York Times, May 14 1933, page 18); or the classic obfuscation, "There
is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is
widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition...." (New York
Times, March 31, 1933, page 13). This while thousands were dying of
starvation each day in the Ukraine.
Walter Duranty's dead but his spirit lives on in the correspondents
successively anointed by the Times and in its editorial policies. It's
the same romantic spirit that brought the Times' man in Cuba in the late
1950s, Herbert L. Matthews, to brand Fidel as an idealistic liberator
and overlook the tyrant in the making.
What does the spirit of Walter Duranty and Herbert L. Matthews
have to do with the contemporary Times' endless sympathy for
Palestinians and its simultaneous dismissal of the suffering of Gush
Katif exiles and Israeli victims of Arab terror? Walter Duranty,
Herbert L. Matthews, and their current avatars at the Times share being
animated by a tendency to romanticize violent ideological extremism, be
it in the form of messianic Marxist promises of an earthly paradise to
be brought about through sweeping but necessarily bloody historical
change; the charisma of iconic, macho Cuban rebels; or the toxic
apotheosis of anger and resentment characteristic of Muslim
fundamentalism in general and Arab and especially Palestinian mythos in
particular.
The Sun is a fine young paper and I hope it thrives and we should
buy it to help it do so.
Shalom,
Jay (Yakov) Ticker
The Times has many features I really love. It's an institution that
can't easily be avoided. I read it on the internet or borrow a copy,
but haven't subscribed or purchased the paper in ages.
There's nothing new about bias and lies in the pages of the Times.
I just recalled the name of Walter Duranty, the Times Moscow
correspondent in the 1930s, who got a Pulitzer by glossing over the
deaths of millions in the Stalin's famines and purges with timeless
quotes like, "You can't make an omelet without braking eggs..." (New
York Times, May 14 1933, page 18); or the classic obfuscation, "There
is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is
widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition...." (New York
Times, March 31, 1933, page 13). This while thousands were dying of
starvation each day in the Ukraine.
Walter Duranty's dead but his spirit lives on in the correspondents
successively anointed by the Times and in its editorial policies. It's
the same romantic spirit that brought the Times' man in Cuba in the late
1950s, Herbert L. Matthews, to brand Fidel as an idealistic liberator
and overlook the tyrant in the making.
What does the spirit of Walter Duranty and Herbert L. Matthews
have to do with the contemporary Times' endless sympathy for
Palestinians and its simultaneous dismissal of the suffering of Gush
Katif exiles and Israeli victims of Arab terror? Walter Duranty,
Herbert L. Matthews, and their current avatars at the Times share being
animated by a tendency to romanticize violent ideological extremism, be
it in the form of messianic Marxist promises of an earthly paradise to
be brought about through sweeping but necessarily bloody historical
change; the charisma of iconic, macho Cuban rebels; or the toxic
apotheosis of anger and resentment characteristic of Muslim
fundamentalism in general and Arab and especially Palestinian mythos in
particular.
The Sun is a fine young paper and I hope it thrives and we should
buy it to help it do so.
Shalom,
Jay (Yakov) Ticker
Thanking you in advance.
Sincerely, Robin
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