NYT uses Shalit as pretext to slam Netanyahu

An absurd editorial in the NYT:

Now that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has compromised with Hamas, we fear that to prove his toughness he will be even less willing to make the necessary compromises to restart negotiations. And we fear that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Fatah faction, who were cut out of the swap altogether, will be further weakened.

Just this one paragraph oozes anti-Israel bias.

Couldn't the NYT have equally have the concern that Abbas would become ideologically more militant as a result of the deal to gain more street cred among the happy hordes of terrorist worshippers who came out to celebrate yesterday?

No, their fear is only that Israel, by showing flexibility, will become more intransigent - without a word about Abbas' preconditions.

Yes, those new preconditions, added only a year or two ago, that Israel must stop all building in Judea, Samaria and most of Jerusalem before negotiations. The NYT is calling these "necessary compromises" but in fact it is evidence of the PLO's strategy of saying no to everything until it gets what it wants, unilaterally.

One has to ask: If Mr. Netanyahu can negotiate with Hamas — which shoots rockets at Israel, refuses to recognize Israel’s existence and, on Tuesday, vowed to take even more hostages — why won’t he negotiate seriously with the Palestinian Authority, which Israel relies on to help keep the peace in the West Bank?

One "has" to ask that question?

Israel and Hamas were never in the same room during the Shalit negotiations, as far as I can tell - Hamas bragged that they didn't even sign the same piece of paper as Israel.

And the NYT is using this as evidence that Israel is more amenable to negotiating with Hamas than with the PLO? Even when Israel has been the one party that has been begging for negotiations to restart and the PLO has been the one refusing?

Incidentally, Hamas was willing to give something up - Gilad Shalit. The PLO has offered nothing. Perhaps if the Times had ever pressured Abbas to compromise on land, there would have been peace by now. Instead, by writing editorials like this, they give Abbas more reason to stick to his favorite word - "No."

The newspaper of record is twisting facts to fit its views, and this editorial proves it as much as it can be proven.

See also Jewlicious.