New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Reveals Anti-Israel Bias

There is very little doubt that Jodi Rudoren, the New York Times bureau chief in Jerusalem, has an anti-Israel bias that has now been convincingly exposed by CAMERA. Camera.org reports that in Rudoren’s latest piece on a Palestinian prisoner hunger strike, she manipulates her readers in the following ways:

• Number of quoted words by Palestinian supporters of Palestinian prisoners: 269

• Number of quoted words by Israelis explaining the rationale behind administrative detention (or anything else): 0

• Number of words by Rudoren (or anyone else) discussing Israeli rationale behind administrative detention: 0

• Number of paragraphs before Rudoren gets around to letting readers know that the stars of her article are members of Islamic Jihad: 14

• Countries and groups that list Islamic Jihad as a terrorist organization include: The United States, Canada, The European Union, The United Kingdom and Australia.

• Rudoren’s description of Islamic Jihad: “a radical and militant Palestinian faction.”

• Number of other articles in May 4 edition of the New York Times that use the words “terrorist,” “terrorist organization,” terrorist network” or “terrorist attack” to describe non-Palestinian groups, individuals and attacks: 6

• Number of people murdered by Islamic Jihad: Hundreds

• Number of rockets fired at Israeli cities and towns by Islamic Jihad: Hundreds

• Number of references in the article to those attacks: 0

But the most telling statistic of all is at the end: Number of days after extremist activist Ali Abunimah complained to Rudoren on Twitter about lack of coverage of the prisoners’ hunger striker before Rudoren authored what Abunimah endorsed as her “must read” report: 4

Just after Rudoren was named to her post, she tweeted Ali Abunimah

“Hey there. Would love to chat sometime. About things other than the house.  My friend Karim Fahim says good things.” As Joel Pollack reported:

the context of Rudoren’s tweet to Abunimah was his charge that the New York Times occupies a building in West Jerusalem “stolen” from Palestinians in 1948–the first of many futile attempts by the Arab world to destroy the State of Israel and expel or exterminate its Jewish population.

Ali Abnunimah, even according to left-wing columnist Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, is a Palestinian activist who argues for Israel’s destruction.

Add in the fact that she retweeted an article called “Palestine: Love in the Time of Apartheid” and tweeted praise for the notoriously Israel-hating Peter Beinart’s book before it was even released, and it becomes clear that Rudoren has no business posing as an objective reporter on Israel.

But then again, the New York Times’ credibility as an objective source on Israel was lost long ago.