‘NY Times’ election coverage whitewashes anti-Arab racism among Jewish Israelis

From Mondoweiss – Just imagine the outcry if the New York Times completely ignored the existence of black and Latino voters in its analysis of the U.S. elections. But the paper continues to practice electoral apartheid in its coverage of Israel, which goes to the polls again Monday for the third time in less than a year. Let’s start with a fact: 20 percent of the population of Israel within the 1967 borders are Arab Palestinians. Yet David Halbfinger’s pre-election survey today finds 6 different Jewish Israelis to quote, but not one single Arab. He also treats the repeat elections as a kind of joke: Is this election more ‘Groundhog Day’ or an episode of the ‘Twilight Zone’? A Sartre novel or a Beckett play? His attempt at wit covers up the ugly truth; Israel continues to have one election after another partly because there is so much anti-Arab racism in the country that none of the major Jewish political parties will dare to form even a tacit alliance with the Joint List, which represents the one-fifth of Israelis of Palestinian background. more