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April 06, 2009
Danny Zamir Slams New York Times
The New York Times has come under criticism from a number of sources (including CAMERA) for the way it mishandled rumors of misconduct by Israeli troops in Gaza. But the source of the most recent round of criticism is likely to raise some eyebrows.
Danny Zamir, the head of the pre-military academy who brought together some of his graduates for the now infamous chat about the Gaza fighting, slammed the New York Times and other news outlets for twisting the soldiers' conversation in order to make "mendacious claims of policies that involve so-called war crimes."
He wrote Tuesday in the Jerusalem Post:
A number of articles published recently in The New York Times quoted or were based on words spoken by myself and by graduates of the pre-army leadership development program which I head (the "Rabin Mechina") - graduates who participated as combat soldiers in Operation Cast Lead and who met recently to process personal experiences from the battlefield.
Both explicitly and by insinuation, the articles claim a decline in the IDF's commitment to its moral code of conduct in combat, and moreover, that this decline stems from a specific increase in the prominence of religious soldiers and commanders in the IDF in general, and from the strengthening of the position of IDF Chief Rabbi Avichai Ronsky in particular.
It was as if the media were altogether so eager to find reason to criticize the IDF that they pounced on one discussion by nine soldiers who met after returning from the battlefield to share their experiences and subjective feelings with each other, using that one episode to draw conclusions that felt more like an indictment. Dogma replaced balance and led to a dangerous misunderstanding of the depth and complexity of Israeli reality. The individual accounts were never intended to serve as a basis for broad generalizations and summary conclusions by the media; they were published internally, intended for program graduates and their parents as a tool to be used in the process of educating and guiding the next generation.
You can read the rest of the column here.
Posted by GI at April 6, 2009 11:06 PM
Comments
Zamier should not be allowed to have his cake and eat it. His double talk even outdoes the distortions of J-Street representatives.
CAMERA readers should please contact the Israeli embassy and politely but forcefully urge that the israel government no longer pays for Zamir to be employed.
Posted by: Paul at April 7, 2009 11:42 AM
Amazing that Danny Zamir has a heart-to-heart on the defensive Gaza operation, with a handful of Israeli soldiers at the academy he heads, and then OK's a written report which he insists was for internal use only. Now he is so surprised, amazed and angry it was publicized in twisted form by an also biased New York Times. A little common sense in publicizing via so-called internal reports, unverified allegations as fact, would have prevented this sorry example of ill-serving the people of Israel.
Even as with today's (3-8-09) slanted anti-Israel treatment by the Times (Pg. A7) in a 4-column top- of-the-page headline, "Israeli Police Kill Palestinian Motorist in East Jerusalem." At first glance of the headline, it suggests Israeli police decided to just kill the driver.The headline failed to even give a hint why the shooting took place, which was featured by the writer in the opening paragraph. Times reporter Isabel Kershner spelled it out very clearly in the first paragraph.
The facts:The Palestinian driver rammed into officers at a road block in an East Jerusalem neighborhood in an obvious effort to injure or kill the Israeli guards. All three officers suffered leg injuries.
The increasing examples of Times bias in its writing, headline treatment and Mideast story placement now is on display on a virtual daily basis. All this even as the Times virtually ignores, or buries abbreviated reports of Palestinian terrorism and rocket attacks against Israel.
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Posted by: PHIL at April 8, 2009 10:25 PM
Zamirls back pedaliing is far from suprising and indeed, if he hoped to even retain his position at Rabin (Leftist is understatement) he had no choice but take what he hopes will be seen as a proactive stance.
Even the NY Times plastering the "claims" of 9 people who "said" they were in combat at a hard left gabfest on pp A1 and then buried the fact that it was all false on pp 7 is expected.
While Halsretzls slander is also expected, it is time that it stops. A good first move by the 65 Reservists who have petitioned AG Menachem Mazuz, but it is only one drop in what should be a torrential storm of Israelis and Jews in general.
I believe we are the only People in history who consistently have served as our own worst enemy. Certainly no Arab NGO takes joy in painting their own people as perverted and degenerate murderers as do particular Israeli and Jewish organisations...and every day we see more.
All it took was 1 otherwise inconsequential person like Danny Zamir to leak his "confidential memo" and voila, Western jackals howled in glee. What use is it castigating the NY Times? What else would we expect from them? But our own People?In the same country that is assailed left and right by HAMAS, et al? For that there is no excuse.
Posted by: rachamim ben ami at April 26, 2009 10:46 PM
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