March 20, 2021 "Information Clearing House" - - "Mondoweiss" - It’s become monotonous. The New York Times runs a report on U.S.-Iran relations, including the sparring over the nuclear deal — and the paper leaves out the Israel angle entirely. The latest example the other day was headlined: “Impasse Over Iran Nuclear Talks Sets Off International Scramble to Save Accord.”

The article, in addition to the U.S. and Iran, mentioned Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the European Union — but no Israel.

The reporter, Lara Jakes, is a veteran correspondent, with many years of experience, including in the Mideast. She didn’t just parachute into the story from covering town board meetings in Westchester County.

The Times’s editors are legendarily powerful, which raises the suspicion that 1) they either cut any reference to Israel, or 2) Jakes knew better than to include one.

The omission is inexplicable. Israel fought vigorously against the Iran nuclear deal back in 2015, a campaign that included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress behind President Barack Obama’s back. Since then, large sections of the powerful U.S. pro-Israel lobby cheered Donald Trump’s 2018 exit from the agreement, and one of Israel’s main mouthpieces here, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, loudly opposes a U.S. return to the deal.

The Times’s failure to include Israel’s role is even more egregious in light of the recent Op-Ed by retired Israeli Major General Yair Golan, who said “key leaders in the Israeli Defense Forces” welcomed the agreement when it was signed in 2015. So far, neither reporters from the Washington Post, (which ran General Golan’s article), nor the Times have followed up on his assertions, which also included the charge that Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the agreement for selfish political reasons, not because he thinks it’s a genuine threat to Israel’s security.

Meanwhile, the Israeli daily Haaretz, citing the Wall Street Journal, said that “Israel has struck at least 12 ships carrying Iranian oil to Syria” since late 2019. Israel is obviously not an innocent bystander to developments in the Mideast, but the New York Times apparently does not always find that news fit to print. 

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