Israeli Fear that Netanyahu Will Start War to Save His Skin Won’t Make It into the ‘NYTimes’
- Israeli Fear that Netanyahu Will Start War to Save His Skin Won’t Make It into the ‘NYTimes’
by James North, https://mondoweiss.net/
Here, yet again, is an article you can read in an Israeli newspaper that you will never see in the New York Times.
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The Haaretz headline tells it all: “Netanyahu should not be allowed to start a war with Iran to save himself.” The two authors note that Israel’s prime minister goes into his third election campaign in a year facing three criminal indictments, and:
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The concern is that he could initiate a major armed conflict with Iran in the hope of convincing the Israeli electorate that there is no substitute for his leadership in spite of the costs to Israel of such a war.
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What makes the article even more compelling is that its authors are hardly left-wing extremists. Shlomo Brom is a retired Brigadier General in Israel’s army, and Shimon Stein is a retired ambassador who is a senior fellow at the Institute for Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
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Meanwhile, what does today’s report in the New York Times say about the risk that Benjamin Netanyahu might start a war? Nothing. The long article by Isabel Kershner notes that Netanyahu just won a convincing victory in the primary within his Likud party, smashing challenger Gideon Saar by nearly three to one. The article’s tone is respectful, even admiring, as Kershner notes that the prime minister, “like a political phoenix, rose to fight another day.” Kershner devotes most of her report to handicapping Netanyahu’s chances in the electoral horse race (although she nowhere says that a central element of his strategy once again is sure to be stoking racism against the 20 percent of Israelis who are Palestinian).
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And here’s another article that appeared in the Israeli press that the Times will never touch; the online +972 Magazine reports on the inspiring campaign within Israel to “expose Israel’s arms sales to the world’s most repressive regimes.” A brave human rights attorney named Eitay Mack and others have carried out a campaign over the past decade with the result that:
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Israel’s arms industry has become a topic of public debate. Government officials and politicians, for the first time in a long time, are required to give answers.
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The Times reporters in Israel, Isabel Kershner and the paper’s bureau chief, David Halbfinger, don’t even have to read Hebrew to follow these stories. Both Haaretz and +972 Magazine publish in English.
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