A previous article said according to TimesThink, Palestine isn't occupied. Gaza isn't besieged. The Nakba never happened.

Lawless Israeli settlements are legitimate. Israel is more victim than aggressor. Palestinians choose conflict over peace. They're responsible for their own misery.

Eighteen months after Israel's preemptive Cast Lead aggression ravaged Gaza, Times correspondent Ethan Bronner headlined "Gaza Through Fresh Eyes," saying:

"For some, it's the relative modernity - the jazzy cellphone stores and pricey restaurants. For others, it's the endless beaches with children whooping it up."

"But for nearly everyone who visits Gaza, often with worry of danger and hostility, what's surprising is the fact that daily life, while troubled, often has the staggering quality of the very ordinary."

Conditions in Gaza are deplorable. They were then and now. There's nothing ordinary about them. They go from bad to worse.

The World Bank calls them "precarious." Unemployment and poverty are extreme. Donor aid is vital. It's way short of what's needed.

Israel destroyed Gaza's economy. Most Gazans lack food security. Essentials are in short supply. Israeli ground and air attacks happen often. They repeat for any reason or none at all.

Bronner apparently didn't visit Gaza. He didn't see how residents struggle. He wouldn't have written accurately anyway.

He's ethically challenged. He's a longtime Israeli apologist. He's now Times deputy national editor. Earlier he was Jerusalem bureau chief. His son served in Israel's army.

He's a Council on Foreign Relations member. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (1917 - 2007) once called it a "front organization (for) the heart of the American Establishment." It's one-sidedly pro-Israeli.

Bronner's job is sugarcoating misinformation. He's paid to lie. He's not alone. Isabel Kershner is ethically challenged.

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting said her record shows a history of misreporting. Her husband, Hirsh Goodman, is senior research fellow for Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

It's an Israeli front group. Many of its professionals have government and/or IDF backgrounds. Israel helps fund it.

Goodman's job is spin. Material he puts out influences Kershner's writing. She relies heavily on it. Times editors don't explain. Failure to do so violates their ethics code, stating:

"Staff members must be sensitive that direct political activity by their spouses...may well create conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts."

"If newsroom management considers the problem serious, the staff member may have to withdraw from certain coverage. Sometimes an assignment may have to be modified or a beat changed."

In February 2012, Jodi Rudoren became Times Jerusalem bureau chief. Like Bronner, Steven Erlanger, James Bennet, Deborah Sontag, Thomas Freedman and others like them, she's Jewish.

Critics ask why Jews are consistently posted in Israel. Ethnic nationals aren't assigned to other foreign correspondent positions.

Rudoren, like past Times Jerusalem bureau chiefs, lives in stolen property. Her residence once belonged to a Palestinian family.  Israel's War of Independence dispossessed them.

They lost everything. So did hundreds of thousands of others. Times editors don't explain. Nor do its Jerusalem bureau chiefs.

Rudoren, like other Times correspondents, writes with an agenda.

On August 4, she headlined "In a West Bank Culture of Conflict," Boys Wield the Weapon at Hand." She portrayed 17-year old Muhammad Abu Hashem as threatening.

She quoted him allegedly saying his "hobby is throwing stones. A day with confrontation is better than a free day."

She left Palestinian suffering unexplained. She ignored Israel's ruthless occupation. She said nothing about multiple daily incursions, arrests, beatings, torture and imprisonments.

She didn't interview affected family members. Stone throwing isn't for fun. It's self-defense. It's no match against Israeli rubber bullets, live fire, tear gas and vicious brutality.

On April 24, 2011, Times editors headlined "President Obama and the Peace Process." They called on Obama to resume what never existed. Doing so was totally detached from reality.

They falsely claimed Palestinians weren't willing to make concessions on previous negotiations. Shocking Palestine Papers revelations explained otherwise.

Palestinian negotiators are longstanding Israeli collaborators. They sell out for whatever benefits they derive. Palestinians get nothing in return for doing so.

They never had a legitimate peace partner. They have none now. Times editors don't explain. They turn reality on its head. They ignore Palestinian suffering. They blame them for Israeli crimes.

"Palestinians need to know they will have American support so long as their demands are realistic," they said. They never did before. For sure they don't now.

They're isolated. They struggle on their own for justice. Traitors represent them in talks. They lack legitimacy. Washington spurns them.

Israeli interests alone matter. Self-determination is denied. Peace remains a convenient illusion. Don't expect Times editors to explain. They prefer featuring pro-Israeli apologists. Arab hatemongers get bylines.

Likudnik Yuval Steinitz is Israel's intelligence and international affairs minister. His agenda is way over-the-top.

It's repugnant, racist and reprehensible. No legitimate editor would feature his commentary. Times editors gave him prominent space. He took full advantage.

On October 15, he headlined "How Palestinian Hate Prevents Peace." He criticized Abbas for meeting with celebrated Egyptian poet Hisham al-Gakn.

His poetry expresses justifiable anguish. It reflects longstanding Arab suffering. He criticizes Israeli harshness. Steinitz called doing so "Palestinian incitement."

He falsely claimed PA-supported schools and publications feature "numerous instances of the glorification of Hitler. Such messages, propagated daily in PA media and classrooms, are internalized by the population at large - and children in particular."

He called himself a former "unabashed supporter of the peace process." Today he's "deeply skeptical about Palestinians' real intentions."

He falsely accused Palestinians of terrorist attacks. He spuriously claims they call for Israel's destruction.

"Jewish history has taught us the hard way never to underestimate the power of hatred," he said.

PA television, radio, schools, publications and web sites all "drive home four core messages," he claimed.

(1) Israel is "illegitimate."

(2) Jews and Zionists "corrupt those in their vicinity."

(3) Palestinians must keep struggling to replace "Israel (with) an Arab-Palestinian state."

(4) "(A)ll forms of resistance are honorable and valid, even if some forms (are) not always expedient."

Fact check

Palestine's Nakba was real. What historian Ilan Pappe explained as "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine," Edward Said called its "holocaust."

"Every human calamity is different, but there is value in seeing analogies and perhaps hidden similarities," he said.

He called Nazi extermination "the lowest point of (Jewish) collective existence."

Occupied Palestinians today "are as powerless as Jews were" under Hitler. They're devastated by "power used for evil purposes."

"Is this the Zionist goal for which hundreds of thousands have died," Said asked?

Israel's so-called 1948 War of Independence showed no mercy.

Hundreds of cities and villages were depopulated. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ruthlessly dispossessed.

Tens of thousands were murdered in cold blood. Women were raped in the process.

Israel's 1967 Six Day War completed what 1948 left unfinished. Over 46 years of occupation harshness followed. So has economic strangulation.

Palestinian suffering continues. Don't expect Steinitz to explain. Don't expect Times editors to apologize for featuring him.

"(T)he next generation of Palestinians is being relentlessly fed a rhetorical diet that includes the idolization of terrorists, the demonization of Jews and the conviction that sooner or later Israel should cease to exist," he claimed.

Palestinians deplore violence. They sought peace for decades. They want self-determination. They want freedom from brutal exploitation. They want lawless occupation ended.

They want the right to live free on their own land in their own country. They've been systematically denied.

Steinitz and likeminded hardliners blame them for Israel's crimes. Times editors feature their hatemongering. They spurn voices of truth.

They betray their readers in the process. They sanitize, duck hard truths and misinform. They do it repeatedly. They do it on issues mattering most.

They do it consistently on Israel. They support wrong over right. Good journalism is its own reward.

All the news fit to print should be fit to read. Important truths and nothing but them matters most. Don't expect longstanding Times policy to change.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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