The New York Times published yet another overwrought, emotional anti-Israel op-ed. This one is by Rula Jebreal, an award-winning journalist. And as is so often the case, it is filled with things that just ain't true - which calls into question all of her journalistic credentials.
Here are a few examples:
According to Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a Hebrew University professor of sociology who has produced the most comprehensive survey of Israeli public school curriculums, not one positive reference to Palestinians exists in Israeli high school textbooks. Palestinians are described as either “Arab farmers with no nationality” or fearsome “terrorists,” as Professor Peled-Elhanan documented in her book “Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education.”As I reported in 2011, Peled-Elchanan is simply a liar. Textbooks that she claimed didn't show a single Arab showed plenty of Arabs with no prejudice. Her claims that Arabs were never shown sympathetically were shown to be out and out lies.
Avigdor Lieberman, has championed a call to boycott the businesses of Palestinian citizens of Israel and, ominously, has even sought to make the “transfer” of Palestinians legal.Another lie. Lieberman called to boycott businesses taking part in a general strike condemning Operation Protective Edge, not all Arab businesses.
And the Lieberman Plan did not call for "transfer," meaning moving Palestinian Arabs out of their homes. He called to redraw the borders to include more Arabs in a Palestinian state.
Israel is increasingly becoming a project of ethno-religious purity and exclusion. Religious Zionist and ultra-Orthodox parties occupy 30 of the 120 seats in the Knesset.There is not a single ultra-Orthodox party in Israel's governing coalition (the NYT since corrected that.)
[M]ore than 50 discriminatory Israeli laws documented by Adalah, the Haifa-based Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel...Not true.
Historically, ultra-Orthodox Jews did not serve in the armed forces. Today, they do — and serve in every capacity, including in the most important elite Israeli army units, such as the Sayeret Matkal special forces and Unit 8200, whose responsibilities include gathering intelligence on any Palestinian they deem a “security threat.”Unit 8200 has recently added some haredim, but as far as I can tell Sayeret Matkal does not have any "ultra-Orthodox" Jews.
There is, regrettably, still some discrimination in Israel against minorities (including Jewish minorities.) There is also discrimination in every other nation on the planet against their minorities. But if Jerbreal wants to fix the nation that she is a citizen of, lying in the New York Times to incite clueless Americans against Israel is not the way to do it. On the contrary - her methods seem to indicate that she wants to damage Israel, not improve it.
And the New York Times is eager to help her do so.
Additionally, for someone who pretends to be against bigotry, Ms. Jebreal sure seems biased against religious Jews:
Unlike every former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s equivalent of the F.B.I., Yoram Cohen, who today heads the agency, is a religious Jew. That change is typical of Israeli society. The greater integration of ultra-Orthodox Jews clearly offers benefits to Jewish Israelis, but for Palestinian Israeli citizens, it has meant a new, religiously inspired racism, on top of the old secular discrimination.Jebreal does not bring a shred of evidence that Yoram Cohen is bigoted against Arabs - except that he is religious (he is not ultra-Orthodox.)
Who's the bigot?
(h/t Ibn Boutros, Yair Rosenberg)