If you were an American visitor in Paris, this morning you probably read this stunning op ed, by the Palestinian writer Yousef Munayyer. It describes in matter-of-fact language the Israeli regulations which prevent he and his wife from traveling to their native towns in Israel and West Bank. In passing it reviews some of the Israeli regulations designed to drive Palestinians out of Palestine. It personalizes a reality that few Americans would tolerate if they understood it. Munayyer’s conclusion — noting that of all the things American and Israel share, democratic values isn’t one of them — I suspect will become a point much debated in the years to come.
But the editors of the Times, in their wisdom, apparently decided that the piece isn’t suitable for American readers — you can find it in the International Herald Tribune (a Times publication) and on their website, but you won’t get it delivered with your morning coffee.
On another press related matter: I’m away, and haven’t tracked the American coverage of the race riots in Israel — that is Israeli Jews rioting against African immigrant asylum seekers, going on a rampage of rock-throwing and window-breaking after being stirred up by some Likud members of Parliament. I’m a moderate immigration restrictionist myself and have always felt that too much immigration poses risks to social cohesion. But I’m no fan of racist pogroms, which is what this was.
Something tells me that if right-wing youths in Germany or France started smashing cars with immigrant drivers and breaking windows of immigrant businesses after being stirred up by xenophobic speeches from right wing politicians, it would be a major story in the American press, and we’d be hearing a plenty of concern about ugly hatreds evocative of the dark days of the past century, etc. Readers can let me know if the rioting white youth of Israel have provoked this kind of commentary in the U.S., but I have my doubts.
German_reader 
“Readers can let me know if the rioting white youth of Israel have provoked this kind of commentary in the U.S., but I have my doubts.”
Apparently, the rioting white youth of Israel enjoy the same protective status in U.S. MSM as rioting black youth of America, as the recent underplayed story out of Norfolk, Virginia clearly revealed.
As far as the NY Times is concerned, the problem probably is greater than than mere prejudice would suggest. It involves the news judgment of the Times’ editors. The other day both NPR’s All Things Considered and NBC Nightly News led off with the story about the recommendation by a federal panel that PSA screenings for prostate cancer not be done for healthy men at any age, a “potentialy huge game changer” for men’s heathcare, in the words of NBC’s Brian Williams. When I looked for an article in the next day’s Times, I finally found it at the bottom of page A19. This happened at a time when I find the most insignifican “news” stories placed on the front page. Somehow I get the feeling that, if the health news had involved just black women (just 6% of the American population), it would have made the front page, but, since it involved 50% of the American population (males), it only merited back page treatment.