New York Times Runs Ad Equating ISIS and Hamas

Robert Naiman is Policy Director and Editor of Just Foreign Policy.

Click for Source Interview on The Real News Network

Lia Tarachansky is an Israeli-Russian journalist with The Real News Network reporting on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. She is the director of On the Side of the Road, a documentary on Israel’s biggest taboo – the events of 1948 when the state was created.

Interviewer: JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: The NYT ran a full-page ad that puts photos of ISIS and Hamas side-by-side. An ISIS militant is standing next to the murdered journalist James Foley. The other photo shows Hamas next to hooded figures they purportedly executed for collaboration. The ad was funded by pro-Zionist rabbi Shmuley Boteach and goes on to say, quote, “If the UN is looking for genocide to investigate, here it is. Not in Israel”, and “Ban Ki-moon should focus on real genocides in the Middle East, stop persecuting Israel the region’s only democracy, and stop making suckers of the American taxpayer.”

NOOR: What do you make of this comparison between ISIS and Hamas?

ROBERT NAIMAN: The key distinction between Hamas and ISIS is Hamas has demands that can be addressed and met. = Hamas made concrete demands like end the blockade of Gaza = That demand could be met. The Norwegian government says the same thing. Hamas is a political group that can be accommodated politically and diplomatically.

ISIS and AQ don’t have a concrete agenda. ISIS is a group which apparently cannot be accommodated politically or diplomatically.

NOOR: Reality doesn’t line up with Israel’s view that all Islamic forces are a monolithic threat.

LIA TARACHANSKY: The Palestinian resistance to Israel is tied to the occupation ended with the signing of the Oslo agreements — Step forward to ending Palestinian resistance. But if people are fighting for their freedom, so if you give them their freedom they stop fighting.

TARACHANSKY: 1996 Netanyahu was running for office and released a book that said the entire Arab world is one dangerous mass of terrorists and that sooner or later the U.S. will witness a huge terror attack (6 YEARS LATER) — Then the USA will understand that Israel is not fighting Palestinians because the Palestinians want freedom from the occupation, but that the Palestinians are a part of a big network just fighting the West for ideological reasons. “9ll was good for us.” — Netanyahu

TARACHANSKY: Netanyahu’s ideology = You fight the Palestinians + Fight any enemy at all times + War forever + War to regain quiet + War to end rockets + War to keep airport open + War to fight the tunnels + War to fight Hamas + War to bring Hamas to its knees + War to show the world that Israel is NOT weak + War to Stop Iran + War to STOP ISIS one country over = So from Netanyahu in 1996 to today has used this WAR language used by much of the parliament today, = A monolithic enemy + Everyone is the enemy + We need unlimited support forever.

TARACHANSKY: If you look behind the scenes, Iran has actually been fighting against ISIS. Hamas is a Party made up of 6 movements. Hamas in Arabic = Means the Islamic movement or a coalition that was elected in 2006 and could have easily instituted sharia law, but they never did. The main reason why they’re fighting Israel is obviously not for Islamic reasons.

NOOR: Was NYT Ad appropriate or was it hate speech?

NAIMAN: It’s important for all of us to respect the First Amendment. We’re seeing in Urbana, Steven Salaita fired by the University of Illinois for sharp criticism on Twitter of Israel’s war on Gaza. So I’m not going to say that NYT should suppress that free speech. I am more concerned that NYT is open to the views of people who think that we should be pursuing a political and diplomatic solution to end the confrontation between Israel and Gaza and the Gaza blockade.

NOOR: Does NYT running this ad reflect how they cover the Israeli-Palestine conflict?

NAIMAN: They would say the ad is a business decision with maybe some editorial oversight. I think there’s much more interesting things to do in terms of challenging NYT’s coverage of the region then challenging them on this ad. In particular how this could be resolved like confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah was resolved since 2006. We know if the blockade of Gaza is not resolved, sets the stage for another violent confrontation in the future. END THE WARS IS THE ISSUE! Demonizing Hamas by Israel is not going to end the blockade of Gaza.

NAIMAN: We know the central cause of the recent military confrontation was the Israeli-Egyptian economic blockade of 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza. That can be resolved right now, this month, with diplomacy and politics, with a diplomat improvement that ends the blockade of Gaza and removes this is a source of violent conflict in the future.

TARACHANSKY: When I was a child we talked about ending the occupation so that we can have peace. Today, the education system has completely internalized this worldview. People in their early 20s don’t even understand that the reason the Palestinians are fighting them is because of the occupation and because of 60 years of this dispossession and displacement and Robbery of LAND. Recent Robbery of 4,000 square kilometers of land today as punishment by the ISRAEL in the West Bank for the kidnapping and killing of the three teenagers. = Excuse Netanyahu used to murder 2,2OO+ Palestinians.

A huge part of land just west of Bethlehem, hugging the Green Line. Israelis don’t see the connection between that LAND GRAB and the entire war against the Palestinians. But it is very clear that Israel is using the this to basically ROB more land. Palestinian fight is for land and for self-determination = Completely lost because of this concept of monolithic eternal enemy that doesn’t have a face.