Nonchalantly, NYT Details Israeli Ethnic Cleansing
Sunday, May 13th, 2007
By Jeremy Sapienza
Today is my day off; I wasn’t even planning on looking at the news, but it’s on my Google page and when I opened my browser, there it was: “Israeli Riddle: Love Jerusalem, Hate Living There”. I’ll be brief, as the article speaks for itself. The article starts out right away matter-of-factly stating that Israel has tried to cram more Jews into Jerusalem while trying to squeeze out the natives.
For four decades, Israel has pushed to build and expand Jewish neighborhoods, while trying to restrict the growth in Arab parts of the city.
I can’t imagine the vitriol that would be packaged as journalism if some southern US state were to, say, subsidize the construction of white neighborhoods and yet refuse permits for private building in overcrowded black neighborhoods. In 2007. It would be the only news for weeks. But it’s Israel, so the New York Times shrugs.
The article goes on to document the rising air of religious fanaticism convincing secular Israels to flee to more modern, cosmopolitan cities like Tel Aviv, mainly because of the astounding birth rate of Jewish religious extremists.
Ms. Angel [who left Jerusalem after 30 years] said she was increasingly turned off by religious and political intolerance. She recalled being casually but modestly dressed one day when an ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman began yelling at her that she was not properly clothed.
Also, because the ultra-Orthodox hardly participate in wealth-generating enterprises, in addition to the conscious economic crushing of the Palestinians in their ghettoes, Jerusalem has become service-poor and opportunities have bled away to other, more liberal parts of Israel. Enlightened, upwardly-mobile Israelis simply don’t want to live there. And yet, while
More than 60 percent of Israelis said they would not want to give up Israeli control of the city’s holy sites, even as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians…78 percent of Israelis said they would not consider living in Jerusalem or would prefer to live elsewhere in Israel.
They don’t want to live there, but they want their government to continue the ethnic cleansing of the native population of the Old City. And the New York Times just finds that yawnable.
Apt title too.
The author makes many indifferent swerves around the more basic and organic — if not searingly painful — facts. A few swerves of note:
What a farce. A "sharp break" from their stance would involve Israel truly considering a compromise in that area (even though they have no rightful claim over the city in the first place). The author doesn't care to mention that the ruling parties in Israel have not budged on the demographics of Jerusalem — ever, and on the contray, have done the complete opposite: They've gerrymandered (to put it nicely) it to Hell and back by force, making Palestinian ghetto life more miserable every day.
If this was an article about a "separation barrier" put up by any state other than "Israel," the author would've mentioned that the [apartheid/segregation/containment] "barrier" is illegal under international law and is condemned by the whole world (minus a few blind, deaf and dumb island-owners); that most of the 50,000[sic] Palestinians who were "left outside" were actually forced to live outside, and that, typically, their land was stolen by — and annexed into — the state of "Israel"; and that the "barrier" de facto annexes at least 10% of the West Bank beyond the Green Line.
"Out-migration"? What an insult to humanity: journalistic fraud, pure and simple.
Again: The author fails to make any mention of the fact that Palestinians are still being driven out of greater Judea and Samaria, and into the ghettos of Jerusalem, by the IDF and militant Zionist settlers.
The author did mention, in a very nonchalant way, a reason why Israelis are moving to Tel Aviv, but he didn't tell the more vital, painful fact, which is that those "ultra-Orthodox Jews" are actually ultra-militant, ultra-violent, ultra-criminal, ultra-terroristic Israeli settlers who are illegally living on stolen Palestinian groves and hilltops.
The author is basically trying to sell us sugar-coated turdballs, oblivious to the fact that most people in the world know what constitutes the soft center.
The more that things change, the more they smell the same.
DetainThis