New York Times Editorial, "Donald Trump’s Answer to Anti-Semitism? You Don’t Want to Know": Look Who's Talking!

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In an editorial entitled "Donald Trump’s Answer to Anti-Semitism? You Don’t Want to Know," The New York Times derides President Trump's response at a news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a question concerning "the rise of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States." The Times would have us know:

"For a normal American politician, the moment offered a perfect opportunity for a home run. Condemn the behavior and make a sincere pledge to do everything possible to stop it. There is no question that hate crimes and malicious speech have accelerated since the presidential campaign, with Jews among the prime targets. The Anti-Defamation League says anti-Semitic talk in the United States has reached levels unseen since the 1930s. And there have been bomb threats against Jewish centers across the country."

Got it: The Trump presidential campaign is to blame for the heightened level of anti-Semitic talk in the US, and the Times is innocent of any involvement in the reawakening this horrifying phenomenon. Rubbish!

As Dr. Phyllis Chesler wrote in a July 2014 article entitled "Incitement to Genocide: How NY Times' Coverage and UN Complicity Breed Anti-Semitism":

"The twenty-first century coverage of Israel and Zionism in the paper of record far exceeds its twentieth century pattern of mere dismissal. In the last fourteen years—in the last year-- in article after article, photograph after photograph, and especially when Israel has been under attack, this paper has systematically put forth an Islamist and pro-Hamas agenda with malice aforethought. If not 'malice,' then the level of willful journalistic ignorance and blindness is hard to believe."

New York Times double standards involving Israel? As observed by CAMERA in 2014:

"We found that 6 out of 7 NYT editorials addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict were negative toward Israel, while none were positive. Opinion columns by NYT staff followed the same pattern of condemning Israel: 5 out of 6 were negative toward Israel, while none were positive. As for invited Op-Eds on the topic, 15 out of 20 were negative toward Israel, while only one was positive."

You might also want to have another look at Ron Dermer's December 2011 letter to The New York Times, denouncing perpetual criticism of Israel by the Times:

"I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, 'positive' and 'negative,' with 'negative' meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were 'negative.'"

More evidence of anti-Semitism at the Times? Perhaps you recall New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's declaration:

"I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."

Then there was Roger Cohen's New York Times op-ed "Obama in Netanyahu's Web," whose title was painfully in keeping with the anti-Semitic tradition of depicting Jews as voracious spiders. As Andrew Rosenthal, who was then editorial page editor of the Times, later acknowledged to me, this "was not a good headline."

In addition, let's not forget the retweet of a message by Nicholas Kristof, referring to AIPAC as one of "the 2 Most Pig Like Lobbies" (see: "Nicholas Kristof Retweets "OBAMA Told the 2 Most Pig Like Lobbies, AIPAC & NRA, to Drop Dead in Same Month": Is Kristof an Anti-Semite?"). We never received an explanation concerning this abomination from Nick, who soon thereafter took book-writing leave from the Times. Nicholas Kristof and anti-Semitism? You might want to have at look at my article entitled "Nicholas Kristof, Israel, and Double Standards" in The Journal for the Study of Antisemitism.

In this regard, the US Department of State writes (my emphasis in red):

EXAMPLES of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel, taking into account the overall context could include:

DEMONIZE ISRAEL:

• Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism to characterize Israel or Israelis
  
  
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis
  
  
• Blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions

And as noted today, in an Algemeiner article entitled "New York Times Uses Antisemitic Imagery to Describe Israeli Academy" by Ira Stoll:

"The New York Times has an article about Beit El, a West Bank settlement that has been supported by David Friedman, who is President Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel.

'The yeshiva complex is a multitentacled enterprise,' the Times reports.

Tentacles? When the National Rifle Association’s magazine depicted Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York on its cover as an octopus, the Times described it in a headline as 'an Anti-Semitic Symbol,' noting, accurately, that “the image has been used in anti-Semitic propaganda, from the Nazis to the modern Arab world.” Now it is the Times portraying religious Jews in Israel using the same negative imagery."

Finally, let's also not forget the persistent willingness of New York Times "moderators" to permit the publication of vulgar expressions of anti-Semitism (see: "Why Is Antisemitism Permitted in Online Comments "Moderated" by The Times? Open Letter No. 2 to Clark Hoyt, Public Editor of The New York Times").

Bottom line: Left-wing anti-Semitism is no better than right-wing anti-Semitism, and the Times indeed helped lay the groundwork for the current groundswell of anti-Semitism in America.