I was about to say (from the movie Casablanca) that “this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” except that The New York Times has romanced Arab terrorists from the day Israel was reborn.

So what else is new when, upon reading the paper Tuesday, May 17, here’s Mahmoud Abbas getting himself published as an op-ed contributor.

This is like Al Capone getting to tell his side of the story, or Josef Mengele giving advice in the Journal of the American Medical Association.  

Remember, every word published in The New York Times is a lie, and even the words not published in The New York Times – those are also lies. So why not more lies from the terrorist-in-chief and Holocaust-denier, Mahmoud Abbas? (See Myths and Facts) Every article in the Times is meant to conform to a particular ideology.

Headlines, news, opinion pieces, all are meant to influence, and in the case of Israel, to inflame.

Headlines like this for example – “Gevalt! Israel To Build New Homes!”

In the recent Nakba business, the Times presented the story from the Arab-Palestinian point of view, as if, some chutzpah these Israelis have defending themselves.

When members of the Fogel family were murdered in their beds by an Arab-Palestinian terrorist, the Times did not cover the story, it covered up the story. No pictures, of course, of the unspeakable rampage, though when ISRAEL BUILDS NEW HOMES you can count on a front page photo of a tractor.

How’s this for timing? The terrorist in a suit gets himself published a week before Israel’s prime minister is to address Congress. We certainly can’t let Benjamin Netanyahu get the first word, and trust me, he sure won’t get the last word. There will be blood (libel) running black in newsprint. 

None of this would count were it not for the fact that the Times is America’s (and perhaps the world’s) leading newspaper. It shapes opinion.

Even Jews buy the Times, read the Times, and are shaped by the Times. In order to keep its Jewish readership, the Times recently ran a favorable series on Holocaust memorials and museums. I wrote in – “Maybe if they’d stop killing us we wouldn’t need so many memorials and museums.” This never made it to print. I am not, after all, Mahmoud Abbas.

But here’s what did happen. Back in June, 1994, I wrote to A. M. (Abe) Rosenthal. Back then he was a columnist for the Times. Before that he was its Executive Editor, meaning he ran the paper. I wrote him something very personal and incredibly, he responded in a letter that nearly wept.

In every line of his “a voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning…” (quote from Jeremiah 31, Rachel lamenting her chidren's exile, ed.)

I told him that I come from a place (Toulouse, France,) where we always had our bags packed, and that, given the libels against Israel, are we still on the run? Again?

He wrote back a three-paragraph letter, June 21, 1994, on The New York Times stationery, in part: “I know what is in your heart because much of it is in mine. I have written about it [the bleeding of Israel] and I do not now know whether I should continue to do so, whether it is of any use.” 

I ended my letter to Rosenthal like this: “Thank you for letting me get this off my chest. There is no one else to talk to about this.” 

Now who would have thought that Abe Rosenthal, still then among the most powerful journalists in the world – he too had no one else to talk to about this?