New York Times: Miss Lebanon, Israel’s Latest Arab Victim

New York Times: Miss Israel Doron Matalon (left) puts Miss Lebanon Saly Greige (second from left) in the “bind” of being photographed with an Israeli

“Strengthen the coverage of Palestinians. They are more than just victims, and their beliefs and governance deserve coverage and scrutiny,” advised Margaret Sullivan, public editor at The New York Times, in a recent column on the paper’s coverage of Israel and the Palestinians.

She might just as well have been writing about the paper’s treatment of any Arabs in conflict with Israel, not just Palestinians. Her observation would certainly apply to the paper’s coverage of Miss Lebanon, Saly Greige, who recently distanced herself from a photograph in which she appeared with Doron Matalon, Miss Israel.

“Miss Israel’s Selfie Puts Another Miss in a Bind” is The New York Times headline, casting the Lebanese beauty as the hapless, helpless victim of Miss Israel, the real player in this drama, responsible for sowing discord by daring to inject herself into (her own) selfie with Ms. Greige, too delicate to be seen with her.

Indeed, Miss Greige herself addresses her failed attempts not to fall victim to the bombastic Miss Matalon: “Since the first day of my arrival to participate to Miss Universe, I was very cautious to avoid being in any photo or communication with Miss Israel,” she noted on her Facebook page in defense of her appearance in the offending image. “I was having a photo with Miss Japan, Miss Slovenia and myself, suddenly Miss Israel jumped in, took a selfie, and put it on her social media.”

While it is Lebanese anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment which place Miss Lebanon in a “bind,” The Times fingers the young Israeli woman as responsible for the situation in which a Lebanese woman refuses to be photographed with an Israeli. A 2011 Pew opinion poll found that only 3 percent of Lebanese hold positive views of Jews, and, according to an Anti-Defamation League survey, 78 percent of Lebanese hold anti-Semitic views.

Blaming the Israeli for discord, and exonerating the Arab side, isn’t confined to just the beauty queen drama.

Of the military conflict between Israel and Lebanon, Anne Barnard writes:

Officially, a state of war has persisted between Israel and Lebanon since 1948. The creation of Israel, and the ensuing war, flooded Lebanon with Palestinian refugees. Israel invaded Lebanon several times, and ultimately occupied parts of the south until 2000. It fought a war with Hezbollah in 2006.

Barnard notes that Israel’s creation “flooded Lebanon with Palestinian refugees” and that “Israel invaded Lebanon,” but she ignores that Lebanon was among several Arab armies which attacked the nascent Jewish state in 1948. Had Palestinian Arabs and neighboring Arab states, including Lebanon, not attacked the new Jewish state, would there have been a flood of refugees to Lebanon? The journalist likewise includes not a word about the Palestine Liberation Organization’s creation of a state within a state in southern Lebanon, where it established a base from which it attacked Israeli civilians for decades. Nor does she note any Hezbollah violence against Israelis and Jews, both in Israel and abroad.