New York Times Falsifies Obama-Netanyahu Meeting [UPDATED]

Original Post Updated At the Bottom

The New York Times assigned to the story a national correspondent, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, whose political perceptions are bland and whose innocence about Israeli-American relations could be relied on. At the newspaper of record, a thing like that does not happen by accident. They took the most anxiously awaited meeting with a foreign leader of President Obama's term thus far, and buried it on page 12. The coverage of a major event, which the same newspaper had greeted only the day before by running an oversize attack-Iran op-ed by Jeffrey Goldberg, has officially now shrunk to the scale of a smaller op-ed.

What is more disturbing and far more consequential is that the Times made this meeting into a story about Iran. They read into Obama's careful and measured remarks exactly the hostile intention toward Iran and the explicit deadline for results from his negotiations with Iran that Obama had taken great pains to avoid stating. Obama's relevant remark was this:

My expectation would be that if we can begin discussions soon, shortly after the Iranian elections, we should have a fairly good sense by the end of the year as to whether they are moving in the right direction and whether the parties involved are making progress and that there's a good faith effort to resolve differences. That doesn't mean every issue would be resolved by that point, but it does mean that we'll probably be able to gauge and do a reassessment by the end of the year of this approach.

"Shortly after," "fairly good sense," "the right direction," "good faith effort," "probably," "by the end of the year." This was a language chosen deliberately to cool the fever of Netanyahu and his far-right War Coalition in Israel. But Stolberg, writing for the Times, converts these hedged and vague suggestions into a revelation that Obama for the first time seemed "willing to set even a general timetable for progress in talks with Iran."

In fact, as any reader of the transcript may judge, President Obama sounded a more urgent note about the progress Israel ought to make in yielding what it long has promised to the Palestinian people. Palestine was the proper name that dominated Obama's side of the news conference. In the Times story, by contrast, the word Iran occurs three times before the first mention of "Palestinians." Iran is mentioned twice more before the words West Bank are uttered once.

Regarding the necessity of a Palestinian state, President Obama was explicit:

We have seen progress stalled on this front, and I suggested to the Prime Minister that he has an historic opportunity to get a serious movement on this issue during his tenure.

And when Netanyahu said the Israeli attitude toward Palestine would completely depend on the details of progress toward securing Iran against the acquisition of a single nuclear weapon, Obama replied that his view was almost the reverse. In a leader as averse as Barack Obama to the slightest public hint of personal conflict, this was a critical moment in the exchange; how far, a reporter asked Obama, did he assent to the Netanyahu concept of "linkage" -- the idea that first the U.S. must deal with Iran, and a more obliging Israeli approach to Palestine will surely follow. Obama answered:

I recognize Israel's legitimate concerns about the possibility of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon when they have a president who has in the past said that Israel should not exist. That would give any leader of any country pause. Having said that, if there is a linkage between Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, I personally believe it actually runs the other way. To the extent that we can make peace with the Palestinians -- between the Palestinians and the Israelis -- then I actually think it strengthens our hand in the international community in dealing with a potential Iranian threat.

This was a reluctantly formulated but direct and inescapable inversion of the Netanyahu doctrine on linkage. Not a trace of it appears in the Times account.

Finally, Gaza was much in President Obama's mind and on his conscience at this meeting; so much so that he broke decorum and stepped out of his way to mention it:

The fact is, is that if the people of Gaza have no hope, if they can't even get clean water at this point, if the border closures are so tight that it is impossible for reconstruction and humanitarian efforts to take place, then that is not going to be a recipe for Israel's long-term security or a constructive peace track to move forward.

And yet not a word from Stolberg and the Times about these words of Obama's on Gaza. Nor was any analytic piece offered as a supplement -- the usual procedure in assessing an event of this importance.

To sum up, what happened at the meeting can be judged plainly enough by the news conference that followed. Binyamin Netanyahu tried to make it all about Iran. Obama declined, and spoke again and again about the importance of peace in the entire region, and the crucial role that Israel would have to play by freezing the West Bank settlements and negotiating in good faith to achieve a Palestinian state.

Let us end where we began, with Barack Obama on the good of peaceable relations with Iran, and the New York Times on the importance of thinking such relations are close to impossible.

President Obama: "You know, I don't want to set an artificial deadline."

Now the Times headline: "Obama Tells Netanyahu He Has a Timetable on Iran." And the Times front-page teaser for their A12 story: "Obama's Iran Timetable."

The decision-makers at the New York Times are acting again as if their readers had no other means of checking the facts they report. They are saying the thing that is not, without remembering that the record which refutes them has become easily and quickly available. A great newspaper is dying. And on the subject of Israel, it is doing its best to earn its death-warrant.

UPDATE BELOW

A commenter on this column pointed out that there was an analytic companion to the Stolberg report, after all. It is a web-only piece, dated May 19, written by David Sanger.

Sanger begins:

WASHINGTON -- Now that President Obama has established what he called a "clear timetable" for Iran to halt its nuclear program--progress must be made by the end of the year, he declared on Monday--both American and Israeli officials are beginning to talk about how to accomplish that goal.

A one-sentence paragraph, and all business. Is the Times trying once again to commandeer public opinion for U.S. or Israeli military action against a large country in the Middle East? Improbable as it may sound, it is becoming hard to escape that conclusion. Certainly, the reader of Sanger's piece is encouraged to draw the same inference as the reader of Stolberg's report: namely that the central subject between Netanyahu and Obama on Monday was the laying out of a timetable against Iran; and that Obama was friendly, compliant, and with-the-program (if vague).

Symptomatic excerpts from Sanger:

"So now begins Mr. Obama's diplomatic sprint." (The Times holds a stopwatch. And the title of the article reinforces the pressure: "After Israeli Visit, a Diplomatic Sprint on Iran").

One of "Obama's strategists" is quoted as saying: "the Israelis, of course, are racing to come up with a convincing military alternative that could plausibly set back the Iranian program." A military alternative to what? Alternative to negotiations, or to some other, American, military action? Sanger withholds comment, only noting: "Neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Netanyahu made any reference on Monday to Israel's regular allusions to those alternatives. This was, after all, a first meeting."

Notice the public assumption by Sanger--contradicted by the tenor and details of the news conference itself--that Obama has already agreed to pay respectful attention to Israel's military ideas. Obama's reluctance to say so aloud is taken to exhibit merely the shyness of a new leader on a "first meeting."

Again: "Mr. Obama's strategy is based on a giant gamble: That after the Iranian elections on June 12, the way will be clear to convince the Iranians that it is in their long-term interest to strike a deal." How gigantic is the gamble, in fact? That depends on whether you set greater store by the Israeli or the American estimate of Iran's progress toward a weapon. It is a gigantic gamble only on the Israeli view. Evidently, Sanger takes on trust the accuracy of that view.

This analytic piece concludes with two paragraphs of Israeli doubts about any dealings at all with Iran, and Israeli doubts about Obama. There is a rushed, single paragraph in the middle, on Palestine. No second analytic piece about Palestine as a subject of Monday's news conference has yet been posted at the New York Times on-line.

The Times story by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and the Times analysis by David Sanger both tell the same story. It says that Iran is the major business between the U.S. and Israel in the coming year. The story is false, as an impartial viewer or reader of Monday's news conference will recognize. The giant gamble of the Times is that by repeating the story they can shape events and help to make it true. This double distortion was policy, not accident.

Comments

[plebeianswillrevolt]

Israel seems to be the agitator, the instigation, they got Bush into Iraq. What in God's name would this planet look like with a raging war with Iran, ... all in the name of Israeli settlements and a launching pad for the evangelical christians to launch their Rapture. If Obama manages to do anything, pray to God he is able to stop this Israeli/Christian World Destruction conspiracy.

[Patrician]

David Sanger has been such a star in my orbit. Why is he off base on this call?

This is another question: why do we, as a nation, feel that we must side with the Israelis against a two-state solution. If you read the deeper history of the area, before World War II, the Palestine people and the Israelis lived side by side. I wish I could use a poor analogy to marriage counseling to illustrate my point. You have acrimony to such an extent that you can't see past it. So someone starts to put together the pieces of what you have in common. I bet they all want peace. I bet they all want hope for their families. I bet they all want to feel that some day, the peoples of that tiny chunk of land, can feel harmony in their bones instead of hearing wailing and weeping over more deaths, more injustice, more radicalized populations.

[shadow7]

Why is this such surprise? The NYT printed Judith Miller's false reports about Saddam Hussein's WMD's, and proved at the outset of the Bush years that journalism was dead at the Gray Lady. That is why the Internet has overtaken establishment news as a reliable source of accurate information. This, for example, is why not a single story about the lies o 9/11 has ever been touched by the NYT - or any of its corporate sister papers. Just Google '9/11 facts' to see the wealth of information... not theory .... is out there. Again, no big surprise, considering the blind support of Israeli policy by the paper and its editorial staff. Truth is always the victim when journalism dies.

[juanchopancho]

Exactly the so called "liberal" NYT coverage on the build up to the Iraq war was a disgrace.

[BadHaBritt]

What the hell has happened here. It's OK to give constructive criticism of all countries in the middle east EXCEPT ISRAEL. There has been such a concerted effort by the Jewish lobby to gag any criticism of the Israeli state and it's behavior that most people feel very uneasy even talking about it.
When just one country in a rejoin can have over 200 nuclear weapons and no-one else is allowed to have even just one then sanity is completely out the window. We should be pushing for a nuclear free middle east and if Israel says screw you then remove the US support and see how they manage then.

Israel has been off the table of discussion in most of the main media for far too long. The gagging of the US population has to stop.

AIPAC take note, your current abuse of power will only destroy your Jewish state if you continue on your current path with no regards for anyone else but yourselves. .

[Elliott32]

Dr Bromwich nailed it again..no it's another home run of an article. You're deserve a Pulitzer for your work on HuffPost. Really! Thank you so much for keeping us informed and aware of the neocon spin from the national record of rightwing war mongering and misinformation. First NYT's Judy Miller misled America into a war with Iraq, now it's Iran they're plying the public with lies once again. The NYT isn't fit for America, it's not even a good investment for new its Mexican investor. Let China own it, or sell it to Murdoch already. Thanks to the internet, we can go online and get better news from the UK and elsewhere. The Times sided with Bush and the war machine to deceive the public and now the game is over. News sites like Huffpost are the future of news. The NY Times time is up. Good riddance to lying warmongering rubbish. Fooled us once.....

Dr Bromwich, I hope HuffPost lets you to syndicate your work here:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/

President Obama needs to hire you too! :-)

[john456]

The New York Times is pandering to its large section of older pro lukid Jewish readers and advertisers. Unfortunately, this pandering ultimately will lead to its demise. Who, but the Limbaugh lemmings, want to read their own perception regurgitated. When the media returns to a position of presenting unbiased reporting of the various positions on a subject, they may once again have the readership to be profitable.

[temptxan]

The New York Times continues its death march, brought about by its own journalistic failings. What happened to keeping editorial opinion out of the news and on the opinion pages?

[hulka37]

In order to achieve peace we must continue to take land that doesn't belong to us.

[SactoBob]

Such anger from Bromwich, sounding like a freshman college student filled with certainty and righteousness. According to Bromwich, these two pieces in the NYT signal a death-warrant for the newspaper, which apparently has "falsified" a story and purposely used a writer who is a "bland...anticeptic zero." (He offers this conspiracy theory about the choice of reporter without evidence.)

What is Bromwich's evidence? He read a transcript of a press conference. He assumes every word spoken by Obama at this public press conference is in fact a true accounting of what went on in his private meeting with Netanyaho, and a true account of U.S. policy. This is not reporting. Once again Bromwich *read a transcript of a press conference* and assumed all truths about Obama's meeting were contained there.

Yes, the NYT has a terrible history when it comes to the Iraq coverage, but I'd rather believe professional reporters stationed in the White House than a hot-headed professor logging into the Internet and reading a transcript. Not all information is contained on the Internet.

[hulka37]

An angry response to a typical cool headed analytical assessment by Bromwich. Your move of projecting anger onto the author was anticipated three turns ago.

[Dez3]

Comparing the British vs. American Press, the American press has given Israel an outright pass on any analytical and critical coverage of the Palestinian problem.

It is shameful that there is little coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and none of it substantive, particularly when the American government has been incredibly supportive of Israel. Other countries cover the essence of the problems and do so analytically, but American people remain in the dark. The true issue here is that Netanyahu is openly defying Obamas call for a settlement freeze by expanding growth within the settlements. This comes after eight years in which Bush looked the other way as Israel expanded their settlements and settlement outposts.

In fact Israeli officials have sought to play down their differences with Washington, saying that joint working groups will continue discussions on the matter. Meanwhile Israel is increasing settlement activity.

The American public deserves to be informed on issues that are destabilizing to the Middle East, particularly when we have troops present in two concurrent wars.

T

[Freenation]

"this double distortion was policy, not accident. " in other words dec.eive public into another w.ar...

[flossophy]

So, if Rupert Murd0ch pulled something like this, the progress0heads would regurgitate their intestines... but when the 'paper of record' does this... nobody bats a left wing eyelash.

It's going to be enjoyable watching the NYT crash n bu`rn

[WarSkeptic]

"but when the 'paper of record' does this... nobody bats a left wing eyelash."

Is that why this story is here? LOL
You actually have it completely flipped. No one would care if the New York Post did this. They are a tabloid. Its only a big deal because it is the Times

[quindy]

New York Times is losing subscribers. Some liberals must have canceled their subscription. I did.

[max08]

"The story is false, as an impartial viewer or reader of Monday's news conference will recognize. The giant gamble of the Times is that by repeating the story they can shape events and help to make it true. This double distortion was policy, not accident."

Thank God for the highly intelligent David Bromwich. Thank God.

And I am surprised that HuffPo is not averse to publishing the truth. Refreshing.

[Ramus]

Shades of The Times' push for war in Iraq and Judith Miller's front page columns. It would insane to attack Iran. Iran has a young population and an educated population. We need to talk with them and befriend them. Only the war profiteers and some Israelis want a war with Iran. (I suppose a war anywhere would do for their bottom line. ) They don't seem to care about anything but their profits. Ike was right.

[GHO]

Once you've said "New York Times Falsifies", you've said it all. The NYT has allowed itself to become a low grade fish wrapper through its partisan reporting, poor editorial control, and general failure at good journalism.