After Harsh Editorial, Watchdog Group Says New York Times Has Anti-Netanyahu Obsession

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) told The Algemeiner that The New York Times has an anti-Netanyahu obsession. The media watchdog made the comments in response to a strongly worded editorial in The Times decrying Prime Minister Netanyahu’s election victory on Tuesday.

“Anyone who wasn’t already aware of The New York Times mindset just has to read today’s paper on Israel’s elections to realize how pervasive is the anti-Netanyahu obsession at that newspaper,” said Senior Media Analyst Ricki Hollander  of CAMERA.

CAMERA also accused the paper of being anti-Israel. Hollander said that the newspaper “makes no secret of its disdain for the Israeli election results- and  of Israel’s democracy.”

Hollander added that she is “hard pressed to think of any other foreign election that has elicited such clear and obvious bias at The New York Times.”

Entitled “An Israeli Election Turns Ugly,” The New York Times editorial board used words, such as desperate, craven, racist, outrageous, and fear-mongering in its description of Netanyahu’s reelection campaign. The board also argued that Netanyahu had “forfeited any claim to representing all Israelis.”

The New York Times specifically criticized Netanyahu’s comments this week in opposition to a Palestinian state, writing:

Mr. Netanyahu showed that he was desperate, and craven, enough to pull out all the stops. On Monday, he promised that if his Likud faction remained in power, he would never allow the creation of a Palestinian state, thus repudiating a position he had taken in 2009.

The publication continued:

But his statement this week laid bare his duplicity, confirmed Palestinian suspicions and will make it even harder for him to repair his poisoned relations with President Obama, who has invested heavily in pushing a two-state solution.

The New York Times editorial board also accused Netanyahu of ugliness:

Mr. Netanyahu added to the ugliness of the campaign when, during Tuesday’s voting, he said in a video on social media: ‘Right-wing rule is in danger. Arab voters are streaming in huge quantities to the polling stations.’

The editorial further described what it considered fear-mongering:

In his desperation, Mr. Netanyahu resorted to fear-mongering and anti-Arab attacks while failing to address the issues that Israelis said they were most worried about, namely the high cost of housing and everyday living in Israel.

Soon after the editorial was published, Haaretz journalist Chemi Shalev described it as one of the harshest in memory. “New York Times greets Netanyahu victory with one of harshest editorials ever,” he wrote on Twitter.

The Algemeiner Journal

{Matzav.com}