For years, those who perceive a media bias against Israel have had a resounding complaint: The country is held to a double standard, expected to behave like a Boy Scout while its neighbors indulge in every sort of mayhem. Now this theory has extraordinary proof, straight from the mouth of the New York Times.
A supporter of CAMERA, the pro-Israel media-watchdog group, wrote to the paper of record last summer to protest the disparity between two articles by Serge Schmemann, the Times's Middle East correspondent. The first was a front- page, 2,500-word indictment of Israel for the use of torture; the second was a far smaller, almost perfunctory report on a Palestinian human-rights group's finding of extensive torture in the Palestinian Authority.
The letter-writer contended that both stories were flawed and biased, but what else is new? The interesting part is the response he received from a Times news editor, William Borders, who wrote, "The whole point is that torture by Israel, a democratic ally of the United States, which gets huge support from this country, is news. Torture by Palestinians seems less surprising. Surely," he concluded, "you don't consider the two authorities morally equivalent."
Well, no. Israel has always held itself to a higher standard. But who knew that the New York Times shaped its reporting around a double standard that is so condescending to the Palestinians? And as the CAMERA Media Report notes, "This line of reasoning could justify failure to cover any human rights violations by regimes thought of as particularly brutal."