Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday charged the New York Times with “demonizing Israel for decades” in response to an editorial that accused his incoming government of posing a “significant threat.“
The editorial, titled “The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy,” argued that while Netanyahu “clearly has the support of the Israeli electorate,” the concessions he is offering his “ultrareligious and ultranationalist” partners jeopardize the country’s democratic values.
The editorial goes on to note the Times “has been a strong supporter of Israel,” despite its long record of anti-Israel bias, from sugarcoating Palestinian terrorism, to accusing Israel of war crimes, to spreading outright lies, such as a recent article about the plight of Gazan fishermen which the publication later admitted was almost entirely fabricated.
In a Twitter thread on Sunday, Netanyahu accused the newspaper of “burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing Israel for decades,” and charged that it now “shamefully calls for undermining Israel’s elected incoming government.”
“While the NYT continues to delegitimize the one true democracy in the Middle East and America’s best ally in the region, I will continue to ignore its ill-founded advice and instead focus on building a stronger and more prosperous country, strengthening ties with America, expanding peace with our neighbors, and securing the future of the one and only Jewish state,” Netanyahu wrote.
Saturday’s editorial said Netanyahu’s government poses “a significant threat to the future of Israel — its direction, its security and even the idea of a Jewish homeland.”
Continuing with a non-sequitur to prove its point, continued: “For one, the government’s posture could make it militarily and politically impossible for a two-state solution to ever emerge.”
The editorial does not explain how a two-state solution will secure the security of the Jewish state.
A European think tank of international law experts last week released a detailed study of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that concluded that the European Union should dump the two-state solution because it has proved to be a failed policy that does not align with EU interests.
File/Veteran Israeli leader and head of the Likud party Benjamin Netanyahu addresses supporters at campaign headquarters in Jerusalem early on November 2 after the end of voting for national elections (AFP)
The Times also called on the Biden administration to “do everything it can to express its support for a society governed by equal rights and the rule of law in Israel, as it does in countries all over the world. That would be an act of friendship, consistent with the deep bond between the two nations.”
The paper warned that Netanyahu is forming a cabinet that will work on “expanding and legalizing settlements in a way that would effectively render a Palestinian state in the West Bank impossible” – even though it is the Palestinians who are far outpacing Jewish construction in Area C, the area of the West Bank where both Jewish and Palestinians live, with illegal Palestinian construction rising by 80 percent last year.
It further warned incoming Israeli ministers will change “the status quo on the Temple Mount, an action that risks provoking a new round of Arab-Israeli violence,” even though every single one of the clashes on the Temple Mount in the past year and a half have been started by Arab rioters. The Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site yet Jews are forbidden from praying on the site, even under their breath.
Regarding Israel’s notoriously left-wing judiciary, the Times warns the incoming government led by Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption for what many claim are trumped up charges, will undermine “the authority of the Israeli Supreme Court, thus freeing the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, to do whatever it wants, with little judicial restraint.”
“These moves are troubling, and America’s leaders should say so. The Biden administration’s main response so far has been a cautious speech by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the liberal advocacy group J Street on Dec. 4, in which he declared that the United States would deal with Israeli policies, not individuals,” it read.
“Moderating forces in Israeli politics and civil society are already planning energetic resistance to legislation that would curtail the powers of the Israeli Supreme Court or the rights of the Arab minority or the LGBTQ community. They deserve support from the American public and from the Biden administration,” the editorial said.
It concluded: “Anything that undermines Israel’s democratic ideals — whether outright annexation of Jewish settlements or legalization of illegal settlements and outposts — would undermine the possibility of a two-state solution. America’s support for Israel reflects our two countries’ respect for democratic ideals. President Biden and Mr. Netanyahu should do everything they can to reaffirm that commitment.”
Coincidentally, Netanyahu’s criticism came the same day the Times came under fire for publishing a crossword puzzle with a marked resemblance to a Nazi swastika.
Donald Trump Jr. took to Twitter to lambast the newspaper, writing, “Disgusting! Only the New York Times would get Chanukah going with this crossword.”
“Imagine what they would do to someone who did this and was not ideologically aligned with them?” Trump Jr wrote. “I’ll give them the same benefit of the doubt they would give those people… exactly zero.”