For years many of us have questioned the objectivity, the honesty and the agenda of the New York Times bureau chief in the Middle East , Steve Erlanger. Pat Connors more than anyone else has chronicled the litany of distorted reporting from Steve and the NYT when it comes to the issue of Israel/Palestine.

Nothing exposes bias better however, than an off the cuff comment during an interview. One doesn’t have the time to cloud it with innuendo which is much more difficult to expose. In a recent interview on The News Hour about the success of Hamas in securing the release of Alan Johnston, Steve does just that.

He refers to the Midle East tradition of kidnapping.

I wonder if he’s referring to the 10,000 or so Palestinians who have been kidnapped by the Israeli army. Or maybe he’s referring to the US practice of kidnapping Muslims around the world for the new policy of extraordinary rendition. But I doubt it.

The examples of his biased reporting are extensive and I will expand on it below over time. Right now I just want to get the video posted.

While discussions were taking place in Egypt, Israel launched a military assault on Ramallah, killing four Palestiians and wounding 25.

ABC News:

Charlie Gibson covered the factional “tension” in Gaza where one Palestiian was killed but completely ignored the Israeli attack on Ramallah.

AP
Egypt’s Mubarak condemns Israeli raid

“Israel’s security cannot be achieved through military force but by serious endeavors toward peace,” Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency quoted Mubarak as telling Olmert during their meeting in this Red Sea resort.

Olmert knows very well that Mubarak is not actually going to do anything. What would he do? What will anyone do?

CNN International covered both: Israeli attack on Ramallah and escalation of factional violence in Gaza.

Elize Labat reports that the “timing could not have been worse, troops rolled in just as Israel’s prime minister began a summit in Egypt with president Mubarak”

What was this? An accident?

NewsHour

Covered factional violence, no mention of Israeli attack

Al Arabiya via Mosaic on LINK TV
Full report on the attack on Ramallah

“At a time when Palestinians are themselves in conflict with each other, they are also being killed by Israeli gunfire. Whether killed or martyred the end result is the same.”

“It is unconscionable that Bethlehem should be allowed to die slowly from strangulation.”
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The Archbishop captures conditions in Bethlehem today as a result of the wall that Israel has built around it, in addition to continued Israeli settlement expansion, travel restrictions on Palestinians and all of the hardships of living under brutal military occupation. As a result, the Christian population is continuing to leave Bethlehem, not due to problems with Muslims, which many in the US media would have us believe, but due to occupation and as Jimmy Carter so aptly labeled, “apartheid” in his new book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.

According to Open Bethlehem and a Two Nation survey by Zogby International, Americans support Bethlehem – but are not sure where it is.

For full results of the survey visit Open Bethlehem

America vs Bethlehem

Most Americans believe Bethlehem is an Israeli town inhabited by a mixture of Jews and Muslims, a pre-Christmas survey of US perceptions of the town has shown.

Only 15 per cent of Americans realize that it is a Palestinian city with a mixed Christian-Muslim community, lying in the occupied West Bank.

While the Christians of Bethlehem overwhelmingly (78%) blame the exodus of Christians from the town on Israel’s blockade, Americans are more likely (45.9%) to blame it on Islamic politics and are reluctant (7.4%) to blame Israel.

And while four out of ten Americans believe that the wall exists for Israel’s security, more than nine out of ten Bethlehemites believe it is part of a plan by Israel to confiscate Palestinian land.

A sampling of media reports during the Christmas holiday reveal why Americans remain so ignorant of conditions in a town they hold so dear.

ABC News eliminates Palestine from the map:

ABC news provides a good barometer by which to measure the US media’s presentation of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus.

What follows are three clips which reveal why very few Americans know that Israel has constructed a wall around Bethlehem which is strangling the holy city. Only when ABC retraces the steps of the holy family does Wilf Dinnick mention the wall, but at least he does mention the wall and the fact that it cuts off Bethlehem from Jerusalem. Unfortunately, one would get the impression that Palestinians are responsible for this wall being built. There are a few other problems with the presentation, not the least of which is the map.

Imagine if this map was ever presented with the label Palestine instead of Israel.

Contact ABC News

A Festive Bethlehem:

Another ABC report presents a “festive” Bethlehem “where some are wearing santa hats”.

A Subdued Bethlehem

There were no other reports that I saw where the wall was even mentioned. In the interview for the Newshour, it appears that Reverend Jamal Khader is answering a question about the implications of the wall but there is no mention of it. The question and the beginning of the answer were edited out. I’m pretty sure that the “it” to which the priest refers is in fact the wall.

Contact the News Hour at PBS

Finally there is CBS

CBS reported that foreigners stayed away despite Israel’s relaxing of restrictions, though they never address why or what restrictions were supposedly relaxed for that matter.

Contact CBS News

Maybe it’s the ghettoization of Bethlehem as described by Mary Ann Weston in the Chicago Tribune

The city of Christ’s birth is now partially surrounded by a wall, much of it 25 or more feet high, an unbroken expanse of solid, gray concrete, a medieval city wall updated with 21st Century cameras and razor wire. The wall snakes through Bethlehem and the nearby countryside, separating farmers from their fields, workers from their jobs and families from their neighbors. …

The wall effectively annexes Israeli West Bank settlements, although they are considered illegal under international law. The settlements are fast-growing Israeli enclaves built on Palestinian land, their close-packed dwellings marching up once-forested hillsides like monochromatic Lego blocks. Bethlehem is surrounded by 27 settlements containing 73,000 people, according to Open Bethlehem, a local advocacy group. The settlements are connected by bypass roads that are off limits to Palestinians.

The wall and other Israeli restrictions on movement have made Christian and Muslim areas of the West Bank such as Bethlehem virtual ghettos