Ari Goldman’s media column, “Bibi’s Missed Opportunity: An Op-Ed In The Times” (Dec. 30) misses the point that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, through senior adviser Ron Dermer, drew a line in the sands of history by taking the opportunity to lay out the role the Times plays in the asymmetrical war of words waged against Israel. A war in which the truth matters naught, fact checking is suspended and information that might place Palestinians in an unflattering light is not published.
Netanyahu made the judgment that writing an op-ed piece in the midst of the nearly daily stream of distortions regarding Israel and 19 negative op-ed articles of the last 20 would serve only to certify the “evenhandedness” of the Times. Perhaps placing this in an Arab context would make the point plain. Chairman Ali al-Salem al-Dekbas of the Arab Parliament explained the Parliament’s call for the withdrawal of Arab League forces from Syria by noting that they only served to give “the Syrian regime an Arab cover for continuing its inhumane actions under the eyes and ears of the Arab League.”
It is to be hoped that by respectfully declining to write an op-ed article, Netanyahu may have helped reset discussions on the Mideast in a way that might advance the search for a just peace.
