New York Times, Washington Post Ignore Local Israel Celebrations

Celebrations of Israel’s 67th anniversary occurred on May 31, 2015 in, among other places, New York City and Washington, D.C. Yet, readers of The New York Times or Washington Post could be forgiven if they had no clue—neither paper provided anything that could be called coverage of events that drew an estimated 30,000-40,000 in Manhattan and 6,500 at two separate Washington sites. The Times did run an Op-Ed questioning Israel’s democracy (“Israel’s Charade of Democracy,” June 1, 2015) rather than cover the 51st annual “Salute to Israel Parade” in midtown Manhattan, celebrating the lone democracy in a region dominated by Islamic terrorism, upheaval and totalitarianism.

The Washington Post took note—if it can be called that—of Israel’s 67th anniversary activities by featuring a black-and-white picture of an unidentified person at the New York parade holding an Israeli flag. The accompanying cutline read “People carry a giant Israeli national flag at the Israel Day Parade in Manhattan. The annual celebration drew thousands of supporters, as well as anti-Israel protesters.” Meanwhile, in the Washington area, an estimated 2,500 people in Rockville, Md. and 4,000 in Fairfax, Va. attended twin “Israel-Fest” activities beneath The Post’s radar.

While The New York Times ignored the city’s annual “Celebrate Israel” parade, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Israeli Minister of Science Technology and Space Danny Danon, Grammy-award winning violinist Miri Ben-Ari and others attended.

The Times of Israel reported: “American and Israeli politicians joined 30,000 other people who marched up Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue in a show of solidarity with Israel for the all-day event marking Israel’s 67th birthday.” Festivities in New York counted “some 35 organizations including the Israeli government, Nefesh B’Nefesh and the UJA Federation of New York, [which] sponsored this year’s parade entitled ‘Israel Imagines Peace.’”

Instead of reporting the celebration of one democracy by another, The New York Times chose to give space on its Op-Ed page to an anti-Israeli organization. The writer was Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, also known as B’Tselem.

B’Tselem, as CAMERA has noted, periodically manipulates facts and figures to malign Israel. NGO-Monitor charged that it also has disseminated propaganda from Hamas—a U.S.-listed terrorist organization—on civilian casualties in the summer 2014 Hamas-initiated war in the Gaza Strip. NGO-Monitor notes B’Tselem “has faced serious criticism for its misrepresentations of international law, inaccurate research, and skewed statistics.”

In New York City, tens of thousands marched in or turned out to watch the “Salute to Israel” parade. In the nation’s capital, thousands participated in two “Israel Fest” gatherings sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.

Yet neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post covered them—an omission most unlikely to have occurred had the celebrants been black, Native American, Muslim America, feminists, gay or representative of virtually any other racial, ethnic, national, religious or otherwise newsworthy group.

In the case of The New York Times any news coverage, neutral or positive, vanished in favor of an anti-Israel commentary from a highly questionable source.

Where was the coverage, and why was it missing?—by Sean Durns