Topic: WorldNetDaily
The WorldNetDaily coverage of the upcoming Israeli elections by Jerusalem-based reprter Aaron Klein has been not only sparse -- since March 1, he has written only three articles on it, even though the election is tomorrow -- it has been very narrow, focused only on the issue of American political operatives who once worked for President Obama's campaign and now working for the anti-Netanyahu coalition.
As befits his history of championing Netanyahu over the years, Klein's work comes off as press releases for the Netanyahu campaign. He does it again in a March 14 article in which once again helps Netanyahu play the victim card once again by suggesting the Obama administration is directly involved in the anti-Netayahu effort -- something he has no direct evidence of.
As we've noted, Klein conveniently ignores the fact that U.S. Republican operatives are working for Netanyahu's campaign. Additionally, as Josh Marshall points out, Netanyahu benefits from the existence of the Israel Hayom newspaper, a popular but money-losing newspaper in Israel founded by American casino magnate (and right-wing moneybags) Sheldon Adelson to promote Netanyahu and his policies.
Klein once again promotes the more-than-vaguely-racist idea that Arabs in Israel shouldn't be mobilized to vote because "Israeli election trends have long demonstrated that Arab citizens vote overwhelmingly for left-wing and Arab parties. Any increase in the Arab vote would clearly come at the expense of the Likud Party and other right-wing parties."
There's much more going on in the Israeli election than Klein will ever tell you at WND -- and that may explain his reporting strategy.
Wwe've previously reported that Netanyahu and his Likud party have been embroiled in numerous controversies that may cost them the election -- something Klein has completely censored in his WND reporting. Indeed, the most recent polling shows Likud slightly behind.
By focusing solely (and disingenuously) on the issue of foreign anti-Netanyahu operatives, Klein appears to be setting up the narrative that if Netanyahu and Likud lose, it's the fault of those operatives. It's something that Klein can apparently get a lot of stories out of, and promoting this conspiracy theory is apparently easier for him than, you know, doing real reporting about what is actually happening in the election.
Remember, Klein is a right-wing extremist who has expressed sympathy for the far-right views of Meir Kahane and who has repeatedly used his reporting to advance the agenda of right-wing elements in Israel. That appears to be what he's doing here as well.
