In a lengthy May 26 article, Jodi Rudoren, the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, goes apoplectic over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s selection of Dore Gold to run Israel’s foreign ministry.

The headline and the lead paragraph immediately signal to readers that Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, is disastrous for Israel’s diplomacy – “Netanyahu Appoints Hawkish Ally to Run foreign policy” – buttressed by Rudoren’s own depiction of Gold as a Bibi confidant who is “hawkish on Iran and the Palestinian issue.”

Never mind that Gold might have good reason to be “hawkish” on Iran, whose ayatollahs are determined to exterminate Israel.  Would Rudoren and the Times instead prefer a “dovish” Israeli foreign policy chief prone to turn the other cheek?  Apparently so.  Israel’s security does not rank high at the New York Times.

The reality of Gold’s bona fides actually suggests that he combines right-of-center views with diplomatic flexibility.  In an interview with the Times, far from ruling out a Palestinian state, Gold acknowledges that “Palestinians will need their own self-governing state, but we have to make sure that any state that arises will not be inconsistent with the security and the national interests of the state of Israel.”

That hardly comports with the “hawkish” headline and the “hawkish” lead paragraph..

However, what Rudoren wants readers to absorb is a lengthy litany of Gold’s alleged hawkishness.

And, no surprise, there are plenty of Israeli doves who are only too happy to supply anti-Gold quotes.

Such as Tzipi Livni, a centrist politician who views Gold’s appointment as a Bibi ploy to “kill the messenger instead of dealing with the message” and sharpening “the fact that we are talking about a government that has to be replaced, not saved.”

Livni is followed by Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian propaganda chief, who views Gold’s selection as an effort to “destroy the two-state solution.”  Never mind that Gold rejects this characterization.  Erekat’s views rate a stronger position than Gold’s own comments, which reject such extremist views.

Objective journalism it ain’t.

Expanding her anti-Bibi, anti-Gold campaign, Rudoren also warns Times readers that Netanyahu’s new government is riddled with “ministerial appointments that Israeli pundits have denounced as farcical or worse.”

Who, pray, are these “pundits”?

Well, it’s certainly a label that fits Rudoren herself.  Ideology over objectivity at the New York Times.

 Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers.