Perceptions of Israel

[Magda Hassan]

New York Times Solicits Then Rejects Video of Anti-African Racism in Israel

by Rania Khalek on October 18, 2013
Israeli man confronts an African asylum seeker after an anti-African rally in south Tel Aviv, December 31, 2012 (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

You can tell a lot about a media outlet by how it covers Israel. A recent case in point is the New York Times.
The Times recently posted a short video entitled, "Free Style In Tel Aviv", which showcases Israeli hipsters in Jaffa, a Tel Aviv neighborhood with an "eclectic style inspired by the area's famous flea market." Of course there's no mention of Jaffa's indigenous Palestinian inhabitants who were ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias in 1948 to make room for the Israeli Jews featured in the piece. Nor is there any acknowledgment that ethnic cleansing of Palestinian citizens of Israel continues at a gradual pace to this day, in an atmosphere of violent anti-Arab and anti-African racism that plagues the heart of Israeli culture. But who cares about dispossession when there are funky Israeli hipsters to celebrate, am I right?
Here's an excerpt from the video (transcribed by Phil Weiss at Mondoweiss):

Omri Aviv. Hipster. "I really love the Jaffa area because it's funky with a true Israeli look. … funky and authentic."
Ofir Siman-Tov, on wearing women's clothes in Jaffa: "This neighborhood is relaxed, chilling, and there's freedom in the street."
Tmima Svitelman: "There's certainly an eclectic style here that I like very much, and I hope they preserve it."

In stark contrast, The Nation recently posted "Israel's New Racism: The Persecution of African Migrants in the Holy Land," a short video produced by journalists David Sheen and Max Blumenthal. The mini-documentary reveals Israel's brutal racism towards African migrants in disturbing scenes of nationalist rallies led by mainstream Israeli politicians proudly declaring their hatred of Africans and leading n-word laden chants demanding "the infiltrators" return to the countries they fled, all in the name of preserving Israel's Jewish character. This is the Israel that most major US news outlets are loathe to acknowledge.
As it turns out, Sheen and Blumenthal's video was originally commissioned but ultimately rejected by the New York Times. In an interview with Consortium News, Blumenthal explains how it all went down:

I was asked to submit something by The New York Times op docs, a new section on the website that published short video documentaries. I am known for short video documentaries about the right wing in the US, and extremism in Israel. They solicited a video from me, and when I didn't produce it in time, they called me for it, saying they wanted it. So I sent them a video I produced with my colleague, David Sheen, an Israeli journalist who is covering the situation of non-Jewish Africans in Israel more extensively than any journalist in the world.
We put together some shocking footage of pogroms against African communities in Tel Aviv, and interviews with human rights activists. I thought it was a well-done documentary about a situation very few Americans were familiar with. We included analysis. We tailored it to their style, and of courseit was rejected without an explanation after being solicited. Isent it to some other major websites and they have not even responded to me, when they had often solicited articles from me in the past.

Why show their readers the real Israel, where Jewish nationalistsincited by Israeli politiciansscream racial epithets at Sudanese migrants in scenes reminiscent of white supremacist riots in the Jim Crow south, when the Times can instead glorify Tel Aviv as an Israeli hipster paradise?
So, without further ado, here is the video that the New York Times doesn't want you to see:

And here is the New York Times' whitewashed version of Israel:

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I recently conducted a Q and A with Blumenthal, which will be published soon at Truthout. We spoke at length about the horrors detailed in his book, "Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel" and the establishment media's refusal to acknowledge the realities he exposes on the ground. It's truly a must-read.

http://raniakhalek.com/2013/10/18/new-yo...in-israel/