{"id":69868,"date":"2019-04-30T17:05:43","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T15:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=69868"},"modified":"2019-04-30T07:25:52","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T05:25:52","slug":"08-05-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=69868","title":{"rendered":"New York Times Is \u2018Cesspool,\u2019 Israeli Ambassador to US Says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>New York Times Is \u2018Cesspool,\u2019 Israeli Ambassador to US Says<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Ira Stoll<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

cesspool<\/strong><\/span> \/\u02c8s\u025bspu\u02d0l\/<\/em>
\nan underground container for the temporary storage of liquid waste and sewage… a disgusting or corrupt place.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The headquarters of The New York Times. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, has called The New York Times<\/em> \u201ca cesspool of hostility towards Israel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In remarks<\/a><\/strong><\/span> posted to his official Facebook page and prepared for delivery at a Holocaust memorial event at the US Capitol, Dermer spoke of what he called \u201cthe Jew-hatred of growing parts of the intellectual class.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe same New York Times that a century ago mostly hid from their readers the Holocaust of the Jewish people has today made its pages a safe-space for those who hate the Jewish state,\u201d Dermer said. \u201cThrough biased coverage, slanderous columns and antisemitic cartoons, its editors shamefully choose week after week to cast the Jewish state as a force for evil.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In describing the Times<\/em> as a \u201ccesspool,\u201d Dermer said that the newspaper\u2019s treatment of Israel \u201cgoes well beyond any legitimate criticism of a fellow, imperfect democracy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Israeli diplomat was taking a side in a rift that is splitting The New York Times<\/em>: Was the publication last week of a cartoon that even the Times<\/em> eventually apologized for and conceded was antisemitic an aberration, the \u201cerror\u201d of \u201ca single editor,\u201d as the Times<\/em> claimed? Or was it rather, as I have argued<\/a><\/strong><\/span> and as the Times<\/em>\u2019 own Pulitzer-prize winning op-ed columnist, Bret Stephens, subsequently wrote<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, part of an ongoing pattern? Stephens called it \u201cthe almost torrential criticism of Israel and the mainstreaming of anti-Zionism, including by this paper, which has become so common that people have been desensitized to its inherent bigotry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dermer\u2019s remarks made heroically clear how the government of Israel viewed the matter. The New York Times<\/em>, however, is having a hard time coming to grips with this criticism. One Times<\/em>columnist, Michael Powell, took to Twitter to describe the Stephens column as false. \u201cthe NYT, news pages & opinion, has absolutely not mainstreamed anti-Zionism or published anti-Semitic arguments & claim is absurd,\u201d Powell wrote<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in a Tweet that was \u201cliked\u201d by Times<\/em> reporters Clifford Kraus, Steve Lohr, Jim Dwyer, John Schwartz, and Mathew Goldstein, and also by a former New York Times<\/em> Jerusalem bureau chief, Clyde Haberman.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a separate tweet, Powell described<\/strong><\/span><\/a> the gist of Stephens\u2019 column as \u201csimply untrue.\u201d Powell wrote, \u201cNo one is mainstreaming anti-Zionism or anti-Semitic argument. It\u2019s hardly as if our pages resemble those of Der Sturmer \u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When the Times<\/em> is in the position of publicly insisting that its pages do not resemble those of Der Sturmer<\/em>, maybe it\u2019s a signal that the paper\u2019s leaders should stop digging, denying and defending and instead begin the long overdue process of sincere self-examination and improvement?<\/span><\/p>\n

Even Powell conceded the cartoon \u201cwas terrible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for the Times<\/em> didn\u2019t immediately reply to an inquiry from The Algemeiner<\/em>seeking a response to Dermer\u2019s comments.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other developments in the fast-moving, escalating scandal over the cartoon:<\/span><\/p>\n