Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor

An Open Letter to New York Times Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.

February 5, 2017 --

Mr. Sulzberger, this letter is addressed to you and not to your executive editor, Mr. Dean Baquet because , lacking any information on the matter from the Kremlin, Wikileaks, or any source, LPR, nonetheless, has “high confidence” that you, not Mr. Baquet, have ordered the transformation of The New York Times into a leftist propaganda sheet. (This is not to suggest, however, that Mr. Baquet objects to this transformation.)

LPR finds that the paper’s December 29 headlines claiming that Secretary of State John Kerry accused Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu of “Sabotaging” peace with the Palestinian falsely characterize Mr. Kerry’s remarks, December 28, in the State Department’s Dean Acheson Auditorium, in Washington, D.C. This headline proclaims, effectively, that Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu are responsible for the lack of peace between the Palestinians and the Jewish State. Yet, Mr. Kerry, in his remarks, never once used the term “sabotaging,” never blamed Prime Minister Netanyahu for preventing peace and, indeed, sought to argue that the Obama administration would never have abstained on U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 if the resolution had not found fault with the Palestinians as well as Israelis. In this regard, however, Mr. Kerry – to borrow from your paper’s January 29 editorial attack on President Trump -- saw “whet he wants to see. “ While Mr. Kerry , in his December 28 remarks, specifically decried Palestinian violence, references to violence, in Security Council Resolution 2334, were not specifically attributed to Palestinian conduct.

Indeed, the news article beneath your false headlines acknowledged: “Mr. Kerry did make note of the Palestinian violence, the ‘extremist agenda’ of Hamas, and the Palestinian unwillingness to recognize Israel.” Your reporter might also have quoted, but he did not, Mr. Kerry’s comment: “Let me emphasize, this is not to say that the settlements are the whole or even the primary cause of this conflict.” If Mr. Kerry accused Israel and her prime minister of “sabotaging” peace, why did he also, in his December 28 remarks, assert that Security Council Resolution 2334 “makes clear both sides have to take steps to save the two-state solution while there is still time?” That comment also was not reported in The New York Times. Here is another Kerry comment ignored by the Times:

“In the end, we did not agree with every word in this resolution. There are important issues that are not sufficiently addressed or even addressed at all. But we could not in good conscience veto a resolution that condemns violence and incitement and reiterates what has been for a long time the overwhelming consensus and international view on settlements and calls for the parties to start taking constructive steps to advance the two-state solution on the ground.”

LPR certainly would agree that Security Council Resolution 2334 is not as balanced as Mr. Kerry claimed in his December 28 speech. Perhaps, Mr. Kerry confused the actual text with the issues in his mind that the resolution did not address “sufficiently,” if at all.

In his long talk – covering 14 pages and reportedly lasting 70 minutes, Mr. Kerry briefly alluded to the start of the Arab-Israel conflict. In declaring at the beginning of his speech that “the two-state solution is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” the now former secretary of state ignored the state department view, following Israel’s victory over the armies of five invading Arab states, that “Arab Palestine be transferred to one or more of the neighboring Arab states.” This assertion comes from a November, 1949 “Top Secret” message from Secretary of State George C. Marshall to Acting Secretary of State Robert Lovett. (See FRUS, 1948, Near East volume, p. 1595.)

Secretary of State Dean Acheson, whose name graces the auditorium in which Mr. Kerry spoke, December 28, sent a “Secret” message, July 13, 1949, to the U.S. embassy in Britain that “agreed” the “Incorporation of Arab Palestine in Jordan” was “desirable” and “should be done at appropriate time.” (See FRUS, 1949, Near East volume, p. 1224.)

In referring to the history of the Arab-Israel conflict, Mr. Kerry mentioned UN General Assembly 181, the original “two-state solution,” indicating that The Arab world rejected this “solution” and went to war against Israel to snuff out her existence. The Jewish state prevailed. And ever since, there has been an international consensus that the Jews, having acted contrary to the world’s image of a pleading Jewry in defeating the Arabs on the field of battle, must take pains, quite literally, to restore the Arabs’ sense of face. Why is the Arab-Israel war about to entered the 70th year? As the late Abba Eban once remarked, because the Jewish state is expected to sue for peace.

This invidious mindset informs you, Mr. Sulzberger, and your newspaper. This invidious mindset also informed the previous administration you labored so hard to support, defend and promote. LPR thanks G-d that a new day has dawned in Washington, D.C.