By Aryeh Savir/TPS • 10 May, 2020

Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer harshly criticized the New York Times for anti-Israel bias it expressed in a recent article on Israel’s battle on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The article, written by Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger, describes the Defense Ministry’s undertakings in the battle on the pandemic and its various technological developments.

A seemingly positive article on Israel, it begins with the paragraph “the Israeli Defense Ministry’s research-and-development arm is best known for pioneering cutting-edge ways to kill people and blow things up, with stealth tanks and sniper drones among its more lethal recent projects. But its latest mission is lifesaving.”

Dermer responded on Twitter by slamming the NY Times, “which buried the Holocaust, Is best known for pioneering ways to libel and demonize the Jewish State. Now it is doing the same.”

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) media watchdog wrote following the article that “if anyone is still in doubt about how extreme the anti-Israel bias is in New York Times reporting, one need just glance at the lede of the latest article on the Israeli army’s battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“Unable or unwilling to portray Israeli life-saving measures in an entirely good light,” Halbfinger begins the article by “casting the research and development arm of Israel’s defense establishment in derogatory terms that Israel’s enemies might use.”

The NY Times have often been criticized for its anti-Israel slant and media watchdogs have often cited it for its partial reporting and inaccuracies when covering the news in Israel.

Asked in a 2018 interview about what the most common complaint is about the paper’s opinion coverage, Andrew Rosenthal, editor of the Times‘ opinion pages, said it’s “that we’re anti-Israel.”