(CAMERA) Ricki Hollander - The New York Times is featuring a video on its website, "Mission: Hebron," that portrays Israel's military presence in the city as inherently evil. The protagonists/interviewees are seasoned employees, former employees, and activists with Breaking the Silence (BtS), whose mission is to slander Israel in the international public arena with hearsay and uncorroborated stories of villainy. Those credited with providing footage include the International Solidarity Movement, that supports deadly terrorist attacks against Israeli Jews. The New York Times fails to acknowledge that this is, at its core, a BtS film. Breaking the Silence is a European-funded Israeli NGO established in 2004 that peddles anonymous tales of IDF wrongdoing, rather than report alleged incidents of military misconduct to the proper authorities. Fact-checking investigations by even sympathetic journalists have shown that most BtS claims are either entirely false or grossly exaggerated. The film conceals the affiliations of the interviewees. The primary interviewee, Ron Zeidel, is Deputy Director and Chief Research Officer for BtS. Another interviewee, Dean Issacharoff, served as BtS Spokesperson. Interviewee Nadav Bigelman was on BtS' staff for nearly six years. Interviewee Nitzan Ron is employed as Director of Activities by Peace Now, a BtS funder. Moreover, what is concealed is that Hebron is the second holiest of Judaism's four holy cities and the site of the world's oldest Jewish community, referred to dozens of times in the Hebrew Bible. Jews have prayed and, with few interruptions, have lived in Hebron continuously since biblical times. In 1929, Arab mobs destroyed the longstanding Jewish community in Hebron. In 1968, after Hebron came under Israel's control, Jews re-established a community in their holy city but were frequently subject to violent and deadly attacks by Arabs. Jews are confined to under 20% of the city, while Palestinians have access to the entire city. The writer is a senior media analyst at CAMERA.
2021-11-25 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive