Prima facie evidence of their complicity is abundant.

The Times’ role in the cover-up ranged from suppression of facts and failure to follow leads that might (and did) contradict Israel’s version of the massacre, to serving as a shameless conduit for Israeli propaganda. The Times persisted in publishing and republishing the official line of Israel and became a virtual bulletin board for crackpot opinions and commentary. A prime example is Michael Oren’s “An Assault on Israel, Cloaked in Peace,” arguing delusionally that this humanitarian effort was an “act of aggression” that threatened the very nation of Israel.

The news we Americans received on the massacre seemed written by an Israeli propaganda minister — in fact, some of it was. The Israeli army  generously provided our media with a carefully edited video of their attack, which major news outlets dutifully broadcasted.

Long-distance images of civilians defending themselves against commando killers (including a woman brandishing a deck chair)  were presented as evidence of armed resistance.  The imprisonment in Gaza of an Israeli soldier four years ago was cited as justification for executing nine peace activists, two shot in the back of the head at point-blank range.

Alternative media journalists like Philip Weiss (Mondoweiss), Glenn Greenwald (Salon), and yours truly (USMediaAndIsrael.com) provide examples of the Times’ stonewalling and disinformation. James North on Mondoweiss, for example, writes about the aftermath of Israel’s illegal detainment of hundreds of peace activists and their video evidence. As Israel began releasing the prisoners, the Times’ legion of reporters failed to interview a single flotilla member to get their version of the atrocity. As North wrote, this unconscionable delay gave “Israel’s version of the deadly raid time to harden.”

The  May 31 Times reported “Israeli officials said that international law allows for the capture of naval vessels in international waters…” Israeli officials said. Exactly. With convenient unprofessionalism, the Times published Israel’s claim at face value, offering no comment or analysis by experts in international law. In fact (and as the Times must have known), independent experts call the attack “flagrantly illegal.”

When the Times finally did report something not fed to them by Israel, their front page story lamented the public relations catastrophe for Israel, not the murder of nine peace activists nor the immense suffering caused by the illegal siege of Gaza.

On the contrary, Times reporter Isabel Kershner writes, “Israel says it allows enough basic supplies through crossings to prevent an acute humanitarian crisis.” Again, the paper reported this cruel lie citing only Israeli propaganda as their source (“Israel says…”). No editor  of the NY Times would allow such sloppy journalism — unless directed to do so by top management.

The NY Times has a long history of pro-Israel reporting of events in the Middle East. One notable illustration is their coverage of Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS Liberty that killed and wounded over 200 American sailors. The Times’ only account of this deliberate, hour-long assault on a U.S. ship — a brief summary buried on page 19 of the paper.

The question is who within the New York Times ordered the most recent journalistic stonewalling and submission to Israeli interests. Might it be publisher/owner Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.? Rank-and-file employees and journalists at the Times must be truly embarrassed, even shamed by their employer’s willful deception of American readers.

Here is the backstory to the political cartoon above:

In the summer of 2003, the world watched as land, water, and dignity were stolen from the Palestinian people — all with the silent complicity of the US media. To express my growing outrage, I drew this cartoon at my kitchen table in Maine.

After realizing that no newspaper would accept it, I decided to publish the cartoon as an advertisement in the NY Times. I focused on the quarter-page space in the Op-Ed section reserved for opinion ads. Contacting the Times, I learned that pro-Israel organizations had reserved the space for 30 of the next 52 Sundays. I took the first available date.

My cartoon was scheduled to appear on September 21, 2003.

The Times required several changes to the cartoon so that it conformed to the acceptability standards of the newspaper. These changes were made. The Times production staff then asked for and was sent the camera-ready copy.

I paid the cost of the ad in full.

On Friday, September 19 I received notification that the cartoon’s publication was cancelled by order of the Times’ publisher. I recall simply shaking my head at the news – wryly noting that this action by the Times was validating the very point of the cartoon.

I next submitted the cartoon to USAToday, where it was accepted. The morning that the cartoon appeared, I received a call at 8:45am from a USAToday vice president.

He said that in all his years at the paper, he had never had a response like what was happening as a result of the cartoon’s publication. Apparently, American pro-Israel groups are geared up for such “emergencies” and inundated USAToday offices nationwide with telephone calls and emails. But of course it was too late.

Two postscripts:

1. I received more hate mail/ threats than I did accolades.

2. A year later, senior management at USAToday had been replaced.

I long regarded Frank Rich a champion, whose fearless exposures of moral hypocrisy in our culture and the media rang true. My view changed after this New York Times columnist gave a talk at Cornell University.

Mr. Rich was asked about our media’s reporting in the Middle East and their unwavering presentation of Israel-as-victim. How is it that Americans are so poorly informed that a large fraction believes that the Palestinians are the illegal settlers in the Occupied Territories? Mr. Rich was asked why he, as a media critic, had remained silent on this biased coverage? Mr. Rich replied, “I’m Jewish.”

His candor is refreshing but what does he mean? Is Mr. Rich suggesting that being Jewish precludes criticizing Israel? Is he suggesting that Jewish American reporters, (and more insidiously, publishers) feel compelled to defend Israel? Where is professional responsibility to the American public?

My criticism extends beyond the failings of a single reporter. As studies have shown, many Americans believe that the Palestinians are the illegal settlers on their own land. How can we be so poorly informed? And why hasn’t the news media worked to correct this misconception?

The answer, some say, is that a conspiracy exists among mainstream media to sift and shape news to favor the Israeli government. Media’s fear, according to this belief, is that a truly informed American people would realize that the Israeli agenda and policies clash with US values and strategic interests.

I don’t believe this conspiracy theory. The pro-Israel bias, in my view, is particular to each newspaper, each TV network. Bias manifests itself in a Frank Rich silence, in a reporter’s sensitivity to his editor’s predilections, in a political cartoon first accepted by staff then rejected by an owner/publisher. Taken together, the public is deprived of fact and opinion. “This is the greatest story never told,” as Steve Lendman convincingly demonstrates in his expose of willful bias in the NY Times.

The BBC has taken seriously documented reports of a pro-Israel bias in its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The BBC governors commissioned an independent study which concluded that an Israeli viewpoint did, indeed, dominate at the expense of Palestinian concerns. The commission proposed specific remedies to correct future reporting in the Mideast. This effort would never happen in the United States.

The honored role of the media in our democracy is to promote informed, public discussion on issues important to our country. “Informed” is the key word here. Full, objective information must be available to citizens to engage in meaningful debate. Mainstream media, by providing only one-sided reporting, suppresses open discussion of Israeli policies and their effect on our national interests.

We Americans are living with the consequences.

Then the Israel lobby went to work on him.

In July 2001, the Media Monitor of the Jewish Press put Mr. Friedman on their Enemies List. Groups like CAMERA and AIPAC castigated his reporting as being anti-Semitic. The president of the Zionist Organization of America claimed “Friedman’s language conjures up disturbing stereotypical images of Jews conspiring to manipulate world leaders and events.” He was branded a “self-hating Jew.”

These relentless attacks worked their desired effect.

A “re-educated” Mr. Friedman suddenly embraced the pro-Israel position to go to war with Iraq. Famously, in his column of August 18, 2002, he coached President Bush on how best to begin that war, then subsequently called the invasion of Iraq “one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad.” And he began denigrating the Palestinian people and their struggle for self-determination.

Today, Thomas Friedman receives $75,000 per talk to Jewish organizations. He lives in an $9 million mansion in Maryland. His change of message seems not to have hurt his career.

Columnist Frank Rich , too, once offered intelligent criticism about events in the Middle East.

Early on, he wrote about Baruch Goldstein, the Brooklyn-born settler who attacked a mosque during prayers, murdering 29 men and boys. Mr. Rich called him a Jewish terrorist for his “savage mass murder of praying Muslims ” and lamented that a shrine was erected by Israelis, celebrating Goldstein as a hero. For expressing this opinion, Jewish groups pilloried Mr. Rich for being anti-Semitic and disloyal to Israel.

In his May 11, 2002 column, “The Booing of Wolfowitz ,” Mr. Rich defended then Deputy-Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz for acknowledging at a large pro-Israel rally in Washington that “innocent Palestinians are suffering and dying in great numbers as well” in the Middle East. Wolfowitz, whose father’s family was killed in the Holocaust, was effectively heckled off stage and called an anti-Semite. Mr. Rich’s forthright essay rebuked such knee-jerk responses of anti-Semitism by American Jewish groups and dared to opine that right-wingers who tolerate no criticism of Israel undermine their own cause.

Predictably, these pro-Israel forces then turned on Mr. Rich and the New York Times . They threatened to boycott the paper, ceasing all advertising, even withholding Jewish death notices. Their response to Mr. Rich was more personal. He suffered a fusillade of attacks, “self-hating Jew” being their favored and highly effective calumny.

Frank Rich has learned the lesson. You will not be reading any more Baruch Goldstein or Paul Wolfowitz columns by him. Nowadays, cowed like Mr. Friedman, he toes the line, and is largely silent on Israeli-Palestinian issues. (See the following entry, “Frank Rich: Moral Hypocrisy? “)

So, am I anti-Semitic? No. I am against the Israel lobby that attempts, through intimidation (and rewards) to corrupt the critical role of the media in America — a role founded on the belief that an informed citizenry, engaged in open and public debate, is essential for our democracy. Thomas Friedman and Frank Rich are only two examples of many reporters who have been pressured to abandon their professional responsibility in covering the Middle East.

Mainstream media has failed us.  America will live with the consequences.

It’s like the Sherlock Holmes case of the dog that didn’t bark. Why does the New York Times ignore or bury news that is unfavorable to the State of Israel? Two examples follow: Chas Freeman , and the USS Liberty . One recent, and the other a willful silence that has continued for forty-two years.

The Chas Freeman Affair

This past February, Chas Freeman was appointed to chair the National Intelligence Council, an advisory body that oversees what intelligence is permitted in official government reports. Ambassador Freeman, a distinguished foreign service officer, is known for his clear-eyed views on Israel and the Mideast.

Alarms blared at the Israel lobby. Immediately AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) began an all-out war to kill his appointment. At stake was whether a special interest group could control what foreign policy viewpoints our public officials are allowed to hold, and in so doing, place another country’s interests ahead of America’s.

"Truth squads" were formed to distribute their propaganda to their allies in the media and Washington. Steve Rosen, a former leader of AIPAC, kicked off the smear campaign by questioning Mr. Freeman’s loyalty to America. Media organizations like Fox News reported the accusation while failing to disclose that Rosen, himself, was under federal indictment for spying for Israel against the United States. Mainstream media sat back and gave the lobby a free hand.

The Israel lobby enjoys enormous power in Congress. Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation noted "the campaign by AIPAC…using a lot of muscle behind the scenes" to prompt Senate and House committees to come out against Mr. Freeman. Democrat Steve Israel, along with four other congressmen who are the top five recipients of campaign contributions from pro-Israel groups, pushed Congress to initiate a formal investigation of conjectures and allegations. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, indebted friend of AIPAC, declared the nomination "beyond the pale."

Professor Stephen Walt likened these Congressional attacks "to Joseph McCarthy’s infamous witch hunt against communists in the US government, [that] relied primarily on lies, innuendo, and intimidation." And as American media did in the 1950s, our newspapers, radio, and television in March 2009 played passive accomplices by repeating and reporting only the surface of events.

The editorial page of the NY Times is read by members of Congress and their staffs, and has significant influence. But neither the Times nor mass media considered the mauling of Mr. Freeman and the attendant interference with our democratic processes worth reporters’ time or editorial comment. In fact, the paper did not run a single story dealing with Mr. Freeman until after the day he stepped down.

Greg Marx, discussing the Freeman affair in the Columbia Journalism Review noted, "if you get your news from the New York Times , you were totally oblivious to this story as it unfolded."

The lobby, sensing it had free rein, went in for the kill.

After weeks of trying to defend himself, Mr. Freeman withdrew his nomination. This event prompted the NY Times to publish its first story on the affair. The article was so tepid that Philip Weiss, in his influential Mondoweiss blog, wrote "it looks like a whitewash to me, written for a pro-Israel audience that doesn’t want to read anything negative about ‘our staunch ally.’" Another columnist, James Wall, wrote that the article "sounded strangely like something an AIPAC intern might write."

This pattern of conspicuous silences from the New York Times isn’t new. It began forty-two years ago.

USS Liberty

Israeli jet fighters and torpedo boats attacked the American Navy ship USS Liberty in international waters on June 8, 1967 during the Six-Day War. For two hours the Israelis attempted to sink the ship using rocket fire, bombs, napalm, and torpedoes. More than 200 Americans — over half the ship’s 358-man crew — were killed or wounded.

Israel continues to call the "incident" a tragic case of mistaken identity, yet for eight hours prior to the attack on a bright and clear day, Israeli reconnaissance aircraft flew over the Liberty , identifying the ship as American .

In the NY Times the following day, the attack merited only a brief article relegated to page 19. Even as damning evidence of Israeli aggression against the ship has come to light from a variety of reliable sources over the past four decades, the Times has continued to follow its initial policy of burying or ignoring the USS Liberty debacle.

My purpose here is not to rehash the details of the attack, nor to judge the evidence of a joint U.S.-Israeli cover-up. The USS Liberty Memorial provides details for those interested in reading more. My objective, rather, is to examine how mainstream media in general and the NY Times in particular have reported on the USS Liberty as new evidence has surfaced periodically over the past 42 years.

Yet it is difficult to examine reporting that has not been reported.

Over the years, evidence has continued to mount that undermines the official Israeli line of mistaken identity and strengthens the argument that the Israeli attack was deliberate — launched and continued with full knowledge that the USS Liberty was an American ship.

Sources corroborating this interpretation include: 1) testimony from a JAG officer responsible for the 1967 official inquiry; 2) eye-witness accounts from survivors of the Liberty ; 3) declassification of government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act; and 4) statements and intercepts of Israeli military personnel involved in the attack.

With the notable exception of John Crewdsen’s article in the Chicago Tribune "New Revelations in Attack on American Spy Ship," mainstream media have ignored these developing news stories. Take for example, the comprehensive and independent investigation of the Liberty chaired by Admiral Thomas Moorer in 2003, whose findings were not favorable to Israel. Only ten of the 300 leading newspapers in America published the Associated Press’ article on the report, according to Alison Weir. During 2003, the Times ‘ attention was focused more on promoting the war in Iraq than in investigating the truth behind an Israeli attack that killed or wounded 206 Americans.

The New York Times ‘ coverage of the Liberty over the past 42 years is telling. Now and then, in attempts to discredit new evidence and witnesses who came forward, the Times has relied on columnists William Safire, who doubled as communication consultant to the Israeli government, and Abe Rosenthal, the former managing editor of the Times . In 1991, columnists Evans and Novak obtained copies of incriminating Israeli communications that were intercepted by the CIA on June 8, 1967. In their syndicated column they reported two eye-witness sources confirming that the Israelis knew when they attacked that the Liberty was American. Rosenthal’s hasty effort to debunk their report was amateurish and partisan. Describing Rosenthal’s objectivity, author Eric Alterman said , "I consider myself a defender of Israel. But Abe Rosenthal…he basically uses his column, I believe, as a means of defending Israel whenever possible, even when Israel does things most people feel are not defensible."

When the media raised their curtain of silence about the Liberty , their reports showed a clear pro-Israel bias. For example in 1992, former Ambassador to the United Nations George Ball published a book severely criticizing the official inquiry on the Liberty . Among major US daily newspapers, only the Washington Post deigned to acknowledged the book’s existence, but to review it, the Post selected a pro-Israel historian who made a career of defending Israel. The review was brief and focused on the Ambassador’s purported anti-Semitism.

American media’s protection of Israel extends to the TV networks. In 1992, for example, NBC produced a documentary on the Liberty promising to let the survivors tell their stories on camera. After the interviews were filmed, NBC assigned a pro-Israel writer and editor to cut, shape, and gloss over information offensive to Israel.

The BBC, by contrast, won an international film award for its documentary "Dead in the Water ." The film presents compelling evidence that Israel did indeed attack the USS Liberty despite knowledge that it was an American ship, and that the Johnson administration orchestrated a hasty inquiry to cover it up.

Today, if you Google "New York Times USS Liberty ," you will find a 2001 TV listing (without review), a 1988 letter to the editor from a survivor of the attack, and not much else. The Times has buried its head in the Sinai sand .

Conclusion

Sherlock Holmes solved the murder case by realizing that the dog didn’t bark a warning because it knew the perpetrator . He was its friend and provider. In matters concerning the Middle East, the New York Times , by playing lap dog to Israel, has become predictable and irrelevant.

This is why the American public is turning away from mainstream media. This is why blogs like this are born.

The cartoon posted on this site has been seen by millions of people from all 50 U.S. states and 137 different countries. I am less interested in the international response (they already know) than in the Americans who swallow whole the pro-Israel bias of the U.S. media.

This website has focused on the New York Times and its coverage of the Middle East to illustrate the control AIPAC and the Israel Lobby hold on news and information provided to the American people. The Comments from readers add depth to the message and are essential reading. Two selections appear below:

Your criticism of the media is quixotic. “The dogs bark but the caravan keeps moving on its way.” –ancient Middle Eastern proverb*

Perhaps it’s quixotic, but “A single stone that holds fast can change the path of an avalanche.” (Milosz, referring to an individual’s resistance to totalitarianism in Poland)*

The NY Times, arguably our finest newspaper, prides itself on accurate, balanced, in-depth reporting. However, regarding coverage of the Middle East, the Paper betrays its standards. The incidents reported above demonstrate how its publisher/owner and leading columnists can be co-opted. The “Gray Lady” indeed.

If the professional integrity of the NY Times can be compromised by pro-Israel groups, then all our institutional media is susceptible to manipulation.

The American people must have accurate and trustworthy news. A democracy demands a well-informed citizenry.

The message of this cartoon remains important. Perhaps six years from now the U.S. media coverage of the Middle East will necessitate another rebirth of this cartoon. And then again six years after that.

I hope not.