In “Far-right Israeli coalition sworn in” (12-30-22), The Washington Post clearly opposes Israel’s new government, stating that it opens “a divisive chapter of national politics” in Israel.
Additionally, the Post article repeatedly emphasizes what it calls potential anti-LGBT actions by the new government, yet it omits the fact that the new Likud government will have for the first time in Israel’s history, a member of the LGBT community as the next Knesset speaker—the third-most important job in Israel’s democracy. These charges ironically malign a country that will continue to be the most LGBT-friendly country by far in the entire region—a region where LGBT members are routinely murdered for their sexual orientation. But The Washington Post will spin it as the newspaper will, because that’s what The Washington Post does.
The Washington Post front-page article had not one good thing to say about the newly formed government, making sure to quote only its critics—not the mark of a balanced newspaper. When Israel’s neighbor, Egypt, held its one and only election in 2012, the Post acclaimed the victory of the Islamist winner as “a watershed moment”—a much more favorable review than the treatment of Israel’s election. The Post coddled Egyptian election winner Mohamed Morsi, calling him “low key,” while routinely criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “hardline.”
The Washington Post’s reporting on Egypt’s election not only amounted to an endorsement of Morsi, despite his membership in the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, but actively defended the extremist organization. The Post noted that members of the Islamist group were “tortured and repressed” but concealed the group’s role in the assassination of the Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat (who made peace with Israel) along with numerous other acts of terrorism, especially against Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. The Muslim Brotherhood assassinated or attempted assassinations against other Egyptian leaders and firmly condemned the U.S. military action that killed Osama Bin Laden. The Post reports the news based on its agenda, not the facts. Why the Post aligns with Islamist groups that favor world Islamic domination over the only democracy in the Middle East would make for an enlightening op-ed.
The one bright spot of the Dec. 30 article was when the Post admitted that the West Bank region was “contested territory” and therefore not Arab land—as the newspaper had falsely claimed in the past. Both Israel and the Palestinians claim the land, and the dispute remains unresolved.
In summary, the Post made biased suppositions about what the new Israeli government “could” do without waiting to see what it does. This is the kind of information one would expect from a soothsayer, not a newspaper.
Dr. Michael Berenhaus is a freelance watchdog activist who works tirelessly to combat anti-Israel bias in the media. He has been widely published in news sources such as The Economist, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
