By David Gerstman
Today the New York Times, predictably, blamed Israel for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to internationalize the Palestinians conflict with Israel. According to the Times, it is Israel's fault that Abbas attempted to get the United Nations Security Council to impose an agreement on Israel and, failing that, to apply to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In an editorial today, The Palestinians' Desperation Move, the Times argues:
Mr. Abbas began this week by insisting that the Security Council approve a resolution to set a deadline for establishing a Palestinian state, including the phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank by the end of 2017. After heavy lobbying by the United States and Israel, the resolution received only eight of the nine votes needed to pass in the 15-member council. The fact is, the United States, which voted against the measure, supports a Palestinian state. And France, which broke with the Americans and voted in favor, acknowledged reservations about some of the details.
Following this defeat, Mr. Abbas moved swiftly on Wednesday to take an even more provocative step in joining the International Criminal Court, through which the Palestinians could bring charges against Israeli officials for cases against their settlement activities and military operations.
While he was under strong pressure from his constituents to do this, he knew well the cost might be great. “There is aggression practiced against our land and our country, and the Security Council has let us down — where shall we go?” Mr. Abbas said at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Note that the Times describes these moves not as wrong, but as counterproductive.
But
both the appeal to the Security Council and the effort to join the ICC
violate a premise of the peace process: that any agreement should come
through bilateral negotiations.
In a column published by the New York Times last week, Israel's former chief peace negotiator Tzipi Livni identified Abbas as the one who scuttled last
year's American-sponsored peace initiative. Even after Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reluctantly accepted an American framework
agreement, Abbas refused. Subsequently he signed 15 international
agreements and entered to a unity agreement with the terrorist group,
Hamas.
Of course Abbas has nothing to show to his constituents. He hasn't made an effort.
Abbas' failure to make a deal now reflects a desire, as Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post put it in
2009 shortly after President Barack Obama's inauguration, "that the
United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions."
Diehl, who had interviewed Abbas at that time portrayed him as playing a
"waiting game."
Palestine’s admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the
internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a
political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims
against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the
International Court of Justice.
This
is exactly what Abbas did this week. After scuttling negotiations early
in 2014, Abbas went about internationalizing the conflict exactly as he wrote that he would.
Going to the Security Council and then the ICC were not desperate
moves; they were not done out of "frustration," to take another term
used by the editorial, but deliberate moves.
By ascribing motives such as "desperation" and "frustration" to Abbas' efforts to impose unfavorable terms upon Israel, the Times absolves him of his responsibility for pushing peace further away.
This
isn't rocket science. It's simply a matter of paying attention to
Abbas' career, especially in the past five years. The editors of the Washington Post got it right on Tuesday, by putting the blame on Abbas and blasting him for his unilateral efforts.
What makes the Times' denial
of reality worse is that two key data points---that appeared in their
own publication---contradict their claims. As noted above, it was a
column in the Times that
just last week identified Abbas as the party who scuttled the American
peace efforts last year. In addition, Abbas himself wrote his plan in
the paper four years ago.
The editors of the New York Times have the truth in front of them, but refuse to see it.
crossposted at Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion
1 comment:
"The editors of the New York Times have the truth in front of them, but refuse to see it." Is this due to ideological blindness or malicious intent toward Israel? While I lean in the direction of ideological blindness, I'm not sure.
Whether this is a case of ideological blindness or evil may possibly affect how such people should be treated. If it is a case of ideological blindness perhaps these people should be pitied. If it is a case of malice intent toward Israel, these people should be held in utter contempt.
Regardless of the reason for such refusal by these people to see the truth I think it is clear that nothing they write on the Israeli/Arab conflict should be taken seriously by truth seekers. Furthermore if their reporting is so far off on this issue there seems no way we can be certain they are going to be able grasp much more difficult concepts than this. As such, the entire publication of the NY Times should not be taken seriously as a news source.
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