The Jerusalem Post, among other news sources, published this story back in February, 2010: “NYT editor defends reporter’s Israel posting.” Then Tovah Lazaroff wrote,
Questions raised following report that Ethan Bronner’s son is in the IDF: Can a foreign correspondent cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if his son is an IDF soldier? The New York Times, in an opinion column on Saturday, answered “Yes” to that question when its executive editor Bill Keller defended the paper’s Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner, whose son is in the Israeli army.
Ethan Bronner not only has a son in the IDF, but he is married to an Israeli.
Is this Ethan Bronner’s son?
Who knows, but there is certainly the possibility that he is serving somewhere in the Palestinian territories in a similar role.
A few days ago, David Morris from US Media And Israel (.com) accused the New York Times of a cover-up that undoubtedly implicated Ethan Bronner, and put the Times on notice that its claim to unbiased reporting is bullshit beyond redemption.
Flotilla Cover-up: The New York Times Accused
June 28, 2010
For the past month, the alternative media have sought concrete evidence that the mainstream U.S. media, including the New York Times, willfully aided Israel’s cover-up of information about their Gaza flotilla attack. Prima facie evidence of their complicity is abundant.
The Times’ role in the cover-up ranged from suppression of facts and failure to follow leads that might (and did) contradict Israel’s version of the massacre, to serving as a shameless conduit for Israeli propaganda. The Times persisted in publishing and republishing the official line of Israel and became a virtual bulletin board for crackpot opinions and commentary. A prime example is Michael Oren’s “An Assault on Israel, Cloaked in Peace,” arguing delusionally that this humanitarian effort was an “act of aggression” that threatened the very nation of Israel.
The news we Americans received on the massacre seemed written by an Israeli propaganda minister — in fact, some of it was. The Israeli army generously provided our media with a carefully edited video of their attack, which major news outlets dutifully broadcast. Long-distance images of civilians defending themselves against commando killers (including a woman brandishing a deck chair) were presented as evidence of armed resistance. The imprisonment in Gaza of an Israeli soldier four years ago was cited as justification for executing nine peace activists, two shot in the back of the head at point-blank range.
Morris goes on to note alternative media journalists like Philip Weiss (Mondoweiss) and Glenn Greenwald (Salon) who have provided examples of the Times’ stonewalling and disinformation, like its failure to interview a single flotilla member. The May 31 Times repeated the Israeli line, that “Israeli officials said that international law allows for the capture of naval vessels in international waters,” giving Israel the apparent legal high ground, yet failed to consult experts in international law (one even wonders if it quoted Allen Dershowitz). At no point in its reporting did the Times lament the murder of nine peace activists or remark on the immense suffering caused by the illegal siege of Gaza. It rather featured a front page story on the public relations catastrophe the attack caused Israel.
The Times went even further in covering Israel’s ass. Isabel Kershner (quoting Morris again) wrote, “Israel says it allows enough basic supplies through crossings to prevent an acute humanitarian crisis.” Again, the paper reported this “cruel lie” citing only Israeli propaganda as their source (“Israel says…”), not the UN or human rights orgs like B’Tselem or Human Rights Watch, people observing on the ground.
No editor of the New York Times would allow such biased journalism unless directed to do so by top management. Who within the New York Times organization would order the dumping of journalistic integrity in order to conform itself to Israeli propaganda? The publisher/owner? When America’s most prestigious newspaper allows itself to spread Israeli propaganda and spin, it has broken ranks with responsible journalism.
“The Times must be truly embarrassed, even shamed of their employer’s willful deception of American readers (Morris).”
