Letter to Zev Brenner - Rabbi Spero - negative press for NY Times

 

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    

 

Thanking you in advance.

 

Sincerely, Robin

More about NY Times and the 17th Day of Tammuz - Biblical Archeology

 

bs"d

 

Please refer to the Times article  Batya Medad has posted in her blog in order to really see what we are up against.  To get it online you needed to be a registered member of the Times (for free).

 

http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2006/07/ny-times-off-target-again.html entiled "Once Again, Gazans are Displaced by Israeli Occupiers". by Steven Erlanger.

 

The article focuses on the poor displaced Palestinians due to the recent Israeli incursion with tanks and armored bulldozers and artillery disturbing their sleep and forcing them into shelters and causing a humanitarian crisis of food shortages including baby formula etc.

 

The Times sees no reason at all to focus on the displaced Jews from Gaza. 

 

The New York Sun's article by Benny Avni, Staff Reporter of the Sun "Israeli Action in Gaza Scrutinized by U.N. Humanitarian Official" on the other hand wrote

 

"Israeli officials told the Sun yesterday that the army closed the Karmi Crossing only after receiving "specific" terrorist threats.  Last April, Colonel Peres noted, a car bomb exploded in the Karni Crossing, Tunnels said to be used by terrorists were recently found near the crossing.

 

Israel, he added has offered to open up an alternative entry for the use of humanitarian trucks through the southern Gaza Kerem Shalom crossing.  The Palestinian Arabs balked for political reasons, he said."

 

Today, the 17th Day of Tammuz I received the Mishpacha Magazine.  The Cover Page Article "Challenge -  The Quest to Eradicate Our Connection and Claim to The Temple Mount" by Rachel Ginsberg.   The article was about the truckloads of ancient dirt illegally scooped out from under the Temple Mount and retrieved from the City Dump.  There is an additional side boxed article about Dr. Eilat Mazar who believes she has discovered King David's Palace.  "More than ten years ago, Mazar proposed a solid thesis as to the location of the palace but despite her sound hypothesis and impeccable credentials, she couldn't find any financial backers for her proposed dig, as if no one in the academic world really wanted to find David's palace.  It's no wonder, when even mainstream archaeologists are inclined to play down funds which might be considered too highly charged with Biblical or historical accuracy.  Another example is Adam Zertal who in 1983 discovered an enormous sacrificial alter on Mount Ebal on the very mountain where Joshua's alter was built after the Jews crossed the Jordan River. The alter he found contained tools dating to the twelfth century BCE the time the Jewish people entered the Land, and its construction matched the descriptions of Joshua's alter in both Biblical and rabbinic texts. ... The more vocal accused Zertal, a secular Jew raised on a kibbutz, of being politically motivated to support Jewish settlement in the area around Shechem where Mount Ebal is located.  (p.s these are communities scheduled for next wave of expulsions like Itamar)  David Hazony of the Shalem Center, an academic think tank in Jerusalem sponsored Mazar. He is quoted as saying "We didn't want to see this shunted to the side like Zertal's discovery.  The message he got from his colleagues was, 'It's bad for business to find things from the Bible these days.  It makes us look like unsophisticated messianic fanatics.' 

 

This insert article concludes by saying "Unfortunately, academia has done much to undermine the Jews' capacity to say where we came from and what our past is all about."

 

Our focus until now has been defensive.  Today President Bush was asked how he felt about Israel's attack in Lebanon he said "It's pathetic but Israel has the right to defend itself". The understanding of that statement is that if Israel isn't attacked then the Convergence Plan and Roadmap are legitimate solutions to the Middle East instability. 

 

I would like to see a change in our focus.   I like the analogy of the Jews being the violinist and the Land of Israel is the precious violin and the Torah is the proper notes.  In order to create beautiful music you need a talented violinist, the precious violin and the right notes.    We are a proud Nation.  Blessings for the entire World can only come through us.  This is not the time to be humble.  Let us not be afraid to be like "unsophisticated messianic fanatics" and promote Biblical and historical accuracy.

 

Robin

More about the NY Times

 

bs"d

 

Dear Friends, amv"sh

 

Please read discussion below.  We'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

 

In a message dated 7/12/06 12:46:29 P.M. Central Daylight Time, sarasl21@yahoo.com writes:

Dear Robin,

 

I halted my subscription of the Times almost ten years ago, when it was not yet fashionable to do so! I couldn't take the bias back then and the aggravation it gave me was not worth reading any part of the paper. I actually went through a withdrawal of sorts after I cancelled my subscription, and I only found a wonderful substitute with the New York Sun.

 

You are right about not knowing whether they will distort any info on the sorry situation of the Gaza refugees. Since their foremost aim is to slant all news into their own radical bias, they may use any material you (or others) send them to do the same. Any article they print really ends up being a feature article rather than a news one. But, at the chance of embarressing the Sharon/Olmert government, it might be worth a shot. You never know!

 

What do others think?

 

Kol tuv,

Sara

bs"d

 

I don't know.  I'll ask around.  Meanwhile in my letter to the Times I focused on the positive contributions of the settlers to society before the disengagement and not only on their unfortunate homelessness at the present.  I made it a point to emphasize that they grew flowers and bug free lettuce.  That is in stark contrast with what the Palestinians have been doing with Gaza once it was given to them.  They literally destroyed equipment, buildings, infrastructure and many of the profitable farming enterprises that were handed over to them for free.  The chose instead to send Kassam rockets and attack Israel.  I am sure documentation for this can be found.  Perhaps it pays to focus on papers like the New York Sun that are less biased and not expect much from the Times.

 

What do others think?

 

 

 

 

More about letter writing campaign to NY Times

Dear Sara, amv"sh

 

The campaign I understand is to put pressure on the Times to report the negative consequences of the Disengagement.  After reading an article in yesterday's Times related to Gilad Shalit, I am a bit concerned.  The Times article appeared in the  International Section A8 entitled "Israel Rejects Hamas Terms for Exchange Of Prisoners" By Greg Myre. (my husband picks up stray copies on the train)  In this article they portray Olmert as being very forceful in his unwillingness to negotiate with Hamas while the Hamas spokesperson  on the other hand Mr. Khaled Meshal, the exiled director of the Hamas political bureau, in a news conference in Damascus, Syria shows a strong willingness to negotiate.  "The solution is simple: exchange prisoners," Mr. Meshal said.  "There will be no freedom for the Israeli prisoner without an exchange involving Palestinian detainees."

 

the Times article continues...

 

Mr. Meshal was also critical of the U.S. and other Western countries for placing so much emphasis on one Israeli soldier when Israel was holing nearly 9,000 Palestinian prisoners.

...

Meshal continues and says that Corporal Shalit had been seized in a "clean military operation" and that Hamas considered him a prisoner of war.

 

The Times reporter(s) are very slick. I am afraid this campaign might cause  the Times to have a balanced article of all the "Palestinian refugees" in the same breath as the unfortunate conditions of the Jewish refugees from Gush Katif.  I am not an avid reader of the Times but it is for legitimate reasons that the Times is being boycotted by Dov Hikind.  Recognizing the TImes for who they are, the question is what is the best way to put pressure on them that will report the disengagement in a negative light rather than twist it to appear justified.  I don't really have an answer.  Perhaps you guys do. 

 

Sincerely,

Robin

 

 

Letters written to the NY Times

 

bs"d

 

Dear Mr. Calame,

 

You are in a position of influence.  You must be aware of the power of  News on future News.  What I am suggesting is that the Times and other media does not only report the News, they are actually part of the creation of the News.  I preface my remarks with this statement in order to impress upon you your role in effecting change either for the good or for the bad.

 

The Gaza Disengagement was tragic.  Not only because of having caused homelessness but even more so because it took productive individuals and brought them down.  Most of the people disengaged from Gaza were productive farmers.  They were role models.  Many of their farming techniques were models for the international farming communities.  You must be aware that many scientific agricultural methods developed by Israel is presently being used all over the world to improve farming techniques and eliminate food shortages in Third World countries.  What comes to mind is drip irrigation which was developed in Israel, hydroponics which was used extensively in the disengaged communities of Gaza and just today I read in  Israel National News http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=106935 "Israeli Research Paves the Way to Grow Crops in Saline Land". 

 

The tragedy of the disengagement is twofold.  People are now homeless and are undergoing severe psychological and emotional trauma from being uprooted from their homes for no apparent good reason.  But the more subtle tragedy is to mankind who will be denied the lost fruits of their labor.  Maybe flowers and bug free lettuce can be grown elsewhere.  But it is not the same.  These people of Gush Katif (Gaza) have to start from scratch with many roadblocks.  They are emotionally scarred.  They are preoccupied with nursing their wounds instead of moving forward with what might have been great benefits to mankind.   

 

And more expulsions are in the works.  Please read http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=106948 Olmert: My Unilateral Withdrawal Plan is Still On.

 

This is where you come in.  If the Times and other papers as the Times would report on the tragedy of the Disengagement, not only to 8,000 people but also to humankind, perhaps Olmert who in very influenced by public opinion would choose not to continue with his Withdrawal Plan. 

 

Please do what you can in this matter.

 

Sincerely,

 

Robin Ticker