New York Times Suggests Israel Become a Bi-national State, Downplays Palestinian Elections

Recently appointed New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Patrick Kingsley blames human rights abuses by the Palestinian leadership on Israel, Honest Reporting notes.

By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel

Recently installed New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Patrick Kingsley has shown his true colors Tuesday in a story that was supposed to be about upcoming Israeli and Palestinian elections, Honest Reporting notes. Instead, the article reveals his apparently preconceived biases, blaming all the Palestinians’ problems on Israel while absolving the Palestinians of any responsibility for their actions.

In comparing the Israeli and Palestinian election campaigns, Kingsley, who cut his teeth in journalism working at the overtly left-wing British newspaper The Guardian, which is known for its anti-Israel reporting, got two things right: Israel is a democracy that regularly holds elections, and the authoritarian Palestinian Authority is holding its first election in 15 years.

But in true New York Times fashion, Kingsley conveniently leaves out key facts and jumps to conclusions that show both an innate anti-Israel bias and a penchant for downplaying the seriousness of the Palestinian leadership’s sins against its own people.

“The Palestinian election, scheduled for May 22, will be the first since a violent rift in 2007 between” the Fatah faction headed by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas terror group in Gaza.

A “violent rift”? In reality, Hamas staged a bloody military coup that at its height saw Hamas terrorists throwing Fatah supporters off the top floors of apartment buildings and waging a campaign of “knee-capping” – shooting off the legs of hundreds of their Fatah rivals.

Kingsley then goes on to blame Israel for the human rights abuses the Palestinians commit against their own people, saying that the Palestinian elections are of no consequence because everything is the fault of Israel.

“Many Palestinians and international rights campaigners warn that the Palestinian elections are no game changer for Palestinian rights,” Kingsley writes. “Palestinians in the occupied territories cannot vote in the election that will have the greatest effect on their lives — the Israeli one.”

What?!? Kingsley puts down in ink that the Palestinian elections will have minimal effect on the Palestinians’ lives – yet instead of questioning why that’s the case, he says it’s Israel’s fault.

It is a known fact that the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Hamas military junta in Gaza both have notoriously bad records of human rights abuses. They both deny freedom of speech and freedom of the press – intimidating, jailing and beating journalists on a regular basis.

Kingsley should be asking why the Palestinians denied their own people the right to vote for over a decade. He should be explaining why elections there are “no game changer for Palestinian rights.”

The Israeli elections are for setting Israeli national policy, not that of the Palestinian Authority.

If Kingsley is concerned about why the Palestinian elections are so weak, he should do his homework and investigate Fatah and Hamas in order to tell us the real reasons for Palestinian misery and stop taking the easy way out by blaming Israel.

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