Rudoren has come under fire from observers on all sides of the Israel-Palestinian divide for publishing inflammatory messages on her Facebook and Twitter pages.

Rudoren, who prior to her current posting wrote on education for the Times, most recently received criticism from pro-Palestinian factions for posting what they said were insensitive messages during Israel’s conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Times wrote Wednesday:

More recently, during the Gaza conflict, she wrote one Facebook post in which she described Palestinians as “ho-hum” about the death of loved ones, wrote of their “limited lives” and, in another, said she shed her first tears in Gaza over a letter from an Israeli family. The comments came off as insensitive and the reaction was sharp, not only from media pundits, but also from dismayed readers.

Philip Weiss, the anti-Zionist Jewish-American journalist who writes about the Middle East for Mondoweiss, his Web site, wrote “she seems culturally bound inside the Israeli experience.”

Rudoren told the paper the she regrets those words:

“I should have talked about steadfastness or resiliency,” she told me by phone on Tuesday. “That was a ridiculous word to use.” In general, she said, “I just wasn’t careful enough.”

The Times responded to Rudoren’s creative use of social media by assigning foreign editor Joseph Kahn to “work closely with Ms. Rudoren on her social media posts.”

Rudoren offended pro-Israel activists before she assumed the post earlier this year.

Critics accused her of getting too friendly with figures such as Ali Abunimah, who operates a site that advocates in favor of Israel’s destruction.

Rudoren told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview at the time that she would continue to engage with all types of people via Twitter and Facebook.

“I’m not really interested in labels about who I am and what I think,” she said.

Rudoren, who is Jewish, also declined to state whether she considers herself a Zionist.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever described myself as a Zionist in the past,” she said. “I certainly think that right now in my job, and where Zionism is a subject of discussion, I don’t have any interest in being one or not being one. I’m not a Zionist or anti-Zionist.”

Jodi Rudoren, who attracted fierce criticism from pro-Israel advocates as she began her job in Israel, recently filed a dispatch, headlined “Palestinians Go Hungry to Make Their Voices Heard,” that glamorized attempts by Palestinian prisoners to starve themselves as a means of protest against Israel, critics say.

Vociferous Israel critic Richard Silverstein quickly took to Twitter to praise Rudoren’s coverage of the huger strikers, who she described as the “newest heroes of the Palestinian cause.”

“Holy shit!” Silverstein exclaimed. “Jodi Rudoren covers story [former correspondent Ethan] Bronner [wouldn’t have] touched w 10′ pole.”

Holy shit!Jodi Rudoren covers story Bronner wudn’t hv touched w 10′ pole:Palestinian Resistance Shifts 2 Hunger Strikes nytimes.com/2012/05/04/wor…

— Tikun Olam (@richards1052) May 3, 2012

The tweet was retweeted by, among others, M.J. Rosenberg, who recently quit his job at Media Matters for America following criticism of his routine use of borderline anti-Semitic barbs.

Mondoweiss, an online portal that is known to traffic in Israel-bashing, published a post praising Rudoren for her courage.

“Jodi Rudoren, distingushing [sic] herself in the New York Times,” wrote Phillip Weiss, the site’s founder and co-editor. “Great to see that word in a Times headline! Notice that Rudoren is not piping this story from Jerusalem, she goes out to the village.”

Weiss also celebrates Rudoren for the “honor she gives this movement.”

Barry Rubin, a Middle East writer and expert, assailed Rudoren’s article as biased, calling it “the last straw” in his effort to view the reporter as neutral.

“What is most impressive about Rudoren’s record so far is that there is no attempt to give the faintest appearance of balance,” Rubin wrote. “She probably doesn’t understand what that concept means. And she certainly knows that the editors and ombudsman won’t hold her accountable.”

“This is not news coverage,” he concluded, “but revolutionary romanticism.”

Rudoren caused a stir in the pro-Israel community earlier this year when she cozied up to extremist critics of Israel on Twitter and would not say whether she considers herself a Zionist.

Critics argue that she is shirking her journalistic responsibility to strive for neutrality.

“What do Israel and Iran have in common? Jailing journalists, according to [the Columbia Journalism Review],” Rudoren tweeted yesterday.

The comment—which immediately elicited a flurry of angry reactions from various pro-Israel forces across Twitter—included a link to a CJR report noting that Israel and Iran respectively place second and third on the list of countries currently incarcerating journalists.

The report itself drew widespread criticism for employing statistical sleight of hand in order to paint a portrait of Israel that does not comport with the facts.

Justin Martin, the report’s author, “avails himself of obviously bad numbers. He relies on an artificial, self-serving, and meaningless definition of ‘per capita,’” wrote Omri Ceren in Commentary. “And he equates twilight totalitarian roundups with open Israeli jurisprudence. For a scholar to publish something like this in an academic outlet is disgraceful, and any CJR editor who touched the post is complicit in nakedly politicizing their journal.”

Rudoren initially defended her tweet, maintaining that the report was noteworthy.

“Just sharing a link that caught my eye,” she tweeted in response to one of her critics.

“Was trying to make a lite point off a tidbit. It’s Twitter, not a dissertation. Others’ analyses also intrstng,” she later added.

She then apologized.

“Folks, I tweeted the CJR link w/o reading it carefully (and w/o reading any of the analyses),” the tweet stated. “Apologies.”

Asked to comment on the controversy earlier today, Rudoren scoffed at her Twitter critics and defended her credibility on the issue of Israel.

“It was a quick tweet of a tidbit,” Rudoren, who ignited a firestorm earlier this year when she used Twitter to reach out to some of Israel’s fiercest critics, explained in an email.

“I wasn’t saying there was equivalency, just noting they were side by side in his list, which, again, in this moment, seemed worthy of a quick mention,” Rudoren said. “That’s how I see Twitter—a medium for a quick note—hey, look at this—as opposed to an in-depth exploration.”

She maintained that it is perfectly acceptable to make note of the report, even if it was flawed.

“To suggest that noting the existence of a CJR study, even if flawed, is anti-Semitic
seems entirely out of proportion. Anti-Semitism is about intent, right? So the suggestion is that I put the tweet out to hurt/destroy Jews? Seriously? A tweet? It’s a platform for conversation, for sharing information—and, sure, for debunking or critiquing that information,” Rudoren wrote.

“To the extent that my tweet led me to critiques of the CJR study, and led others to both the studies and the critiques, it worked. To say that throwing a link out there affects my credibility seems to me to reflect a lack of understanding of the medium, or at least how I use it,” Rudoren added.

“Given the ongoing news/climate re Iran and Israel, that seemed the punchy twitter thing to note (while reading at night on vacation after a long day at Disneyworld—perhaps not the brightest idea),” she said.

Many of her critics are simply trying to make her job unpleasant, she said.

“There’s also clearly people trying to just make the whole experience of reporting on or discussing the issues toxic,” Rudoren said. “Which is unfortunate.”

In a report on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual lobbying day—in which thousands of pro-Israel delegates flood Capitol Hill to lobby in support of the Jewish state—Rudoren mistakenly stated that AIPAC is an Israeli entity, according to a correction issued by the newspaper.

“Because of an editing error, an article on Wednesday about a large lobbying effort on Capitol Hill Tuesday by delegates to the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee referred incorrectly to the organization, known as Aipac,” reads the Times correction, which is currently appended to the bottom Rudoren’s article. “It is a pro-Israel lobbying group that works in the United States to advance Israel’s interests. It does not work directly for the state of Israel or its government.”

Even the correction misleads the reader, however.

AIPAC is an American lobbying organization and has a structure similar to other large D.C.-based lobbying groups. Critics of AIPAC—and what they call its nefarious foreign policy objectives—routinely demand that the organization register as a foreign lobby because, as they see it, AIPAC is loyal only to Israel.

AIPAC is in no way affiliated with the state of Israel. It is a bi-partisan organization that seeks to bolster the U.S.-Israel relationship in Congress and across America.

“This outrageous ‘correction’ is either a product of fundamental ignorance or purposeful and malicious editorializing,” said Josh Block, who served as AIPAC’s spokesperson for nearly a decade. “We will see if the editors at the NYT have the journalistic integrity and confidence to correct a correction that is not only factually wrong, but a truly insulting and more subtle way of saying something quite pernicious.”

The story still refers to AIPAC as “an Israel lobbying group.”

“Israel lobby” is the term employed by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in their 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. In it, the authors make the case that Israel controls U.S. foreign policy through intimidation and other sinister means.

“The reason why AIPAC and the U.S.-Israel relationship has such strong support on Capitol Hill is because it’s in America’s interest to have a strong state of Israel in the Middle East,” said a senior Hill staffer who works for a pro-Israel member of Congress. “Israel does have representation on the Hill, but through the Israeli embassy. AIPAC very clearly advocates for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship not just because it’s in Israel’s interest, but more importantly because it’s in the interest of the United States.”

“I’m going to punt on that question,” Rudoren, who is Jewish, told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview yesterday. “I’m not really interested in labels about who I am and what I think.”

Rudoren, formerly the paper’s education editor, has come under fire in recent days for sending out a series of sympathetic tweets to some of Israel’s fiercest non-terrorist critics. Some pro-Israel observers are questioning Rudoren’s ability to remain neutral, as well as her qualifications, as she covers one of the Middle East’s most volatile and fraught conflicts.

Asked point-blank if she considers herself a Zionist, Rudoren demurred.

“I describe myself as a journalist. I don’t describe myself in political terms on any subject,” she said. “I see my role in the world as an observer of what’s going on, so I don’t take on labels that have, sort of, ideological or just activist positions.”

Rudoren added: “I don’t know that I’ve ever described myself as a Zionist in the past. I certainly think that right now in my job, and where Zionism is a subject of discussion, I don’t have any interest in being one or not being one. I’m not a Zionist or anti-Zionist.”

At the center of the controversy is a tweet that Rudoren sent to Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, a website that contains a treasure trove of writings highly antagonistic toward the Jewish state. Abunimah relentlessly attacked Rudoren’s predecessor, Ethan Bronner, on the grounds that his son’s service in the Israel Defense Forces compromised his objectivity.

Oddly, Rudoren claimed in her original tweet that she had heard “good things” about Abunimah from her fellow Times’ colleague Kareem Fahim.

Now Rudoren is walking back that initial statement, maintaining she has never heard “good things” about Abunimah.

“I have not heard any specific good things,” Rudoren said. “I haven’t heard anything. I’ve heard that he’s a person I should meet and talk to.”

“It was just a, ‘Hey, let’s talk.’ That’s what it was,” she explained.

Rudoren also took heat for praising Peter Beinart’s forthcoming The Crisis of Zionism, which she labeled as “terrific: provocative, readable, full of reporting and reflection.”

Rudoren stood by her praise for Beinart’s book, arguing, “It’s a well made argument; it’s well-written and provocative.”

On the issue of her journalistic objectivity, Rudoren said her tweets do not reveal an innate bias against Israel.

“People can say whatever they want. I think my fairness is what I have,” Rudoren said. “You’ve just written something very critical of me and now I’m talking to you. I’m going to talk to all kinds of people.”

Late yesterday, Rudoren promoted a message from a Twitter user whose profile reads: “I dabble in the art of Zionist-busting.” The tweet linked to a website called, Palestine: Love in the Time of Apartheid.

Asked if she considers Israel an apartheid state—as critics of the Jewish state so often do—Rudoren declined comment.

“I don’t have an assessment yet,” she said. “I’m not sure I’ll ever answer that question in the way you’ve just framed it.”

In a range of interviews over the past day, Rudoren has repeatedly claimed that she is a neophyte in the realm of covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, some of her previous writings—filed in the Times under a different byline—call this claim into question.

In one 2001 article, Rudoren delved into the war of words that takes place between Jewish and Palestinian students at universities across the country. In another from 2005, she reported on efforts by Presbyterian Christians to remain on good terms with Jewish groups. A 2002 article chronicled issues of Jewish life and terrorism during the Second Intifada.

Discussing the 2001 article in a follow-up email, Roduren explained, “Well, I have written some about Jews in the US—and lots about Muslims and Arab-Americans in the aftermath of 9/11, particularly in Detroit/Dearborn area—though not in a focused, beat-oriented way.”

“I think the story speaks for itself. I’d forgotten that it included a quote re apartheid. So, much has changed, much is the same.”

The New York Times’ newly appointed Jerusalem bureau chief played Twitter footsie on Tuesday with some of Israel’s most extreme non-terrorist critics.

Jodi Rudoren, until recently the paper’s education editor, is set to take control of the Times’ Jerusalem bureau following the exit of longtime chief Ethan Bronner.

Already, Rudoren is beaming out cutesy missives to prominent, self-described anti-Zionist players such as Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, a website that contains a treasure trove of writings highly antagonistic toward the Jewish state.

Rudoren also Tweeted yesterday with the website Mondoweiss, an online portal that is known to traffic in Israel-bashing.

Early yesterday afternoon, Rudoren Tweeted a friendly dispatch to Abunimah, who has referred to Zionism as “one of the worst forms of anti-Semitism in existence today.”

Abunimah initially had criticized Rudoren for moving to the Time’s Jerusalem office building, which Abunimah described as “stolen” from the Palestinians.

“Hey there. Would love to chat sometime. About things other than the house. My friend Kareem Fahim says good things,” Rudoren responded, referencing her Times colleague who covers Syria.

A few minutes later, Rudoren responded to a tweet from Mondoweiss. The message included a link to an article the website had published discussing Rudoren’s upcoming move to Israel.

“FYI,” she tweeted back, “one reason ur not familiar w my name is most of my reporting career was under different byline.”

Rudoren’s last name was formerly Wilgoren. After marrying husband Gary Ruderman, the couple combined their names to form “Rudoren.”

Pro-Israel observers are already beginning to question Rudoren’s impartiality on issue of Israel.

“Obviously a New York Times reporter is expected to talk to everyone in the context of reporting a story, perhaps even terrorists at times. But it’s concerning to see the tone of these exchanges,” said Josh Block, a Middle East analyst and former top official at a pro-Israel group. “These are not people you engage like this, especially your first day as Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the paper of record. You really don’t even want to be seen in public with them—it’s just a mistake.”

Noah Pollak, executive director of the pro-Israel Emergency Committee for Israel, added that this serves as “a window into the disturbing workplace culture at the New York Times that a reporter, Kareem Fahim, would recommend a well-known bigot to help another reporter prepare for an assignment.”

He added that “it’s too early to draw any conclusions—maybe Rudoren has no idea who Abunimah is—but one hopes that she’ll approach her new assignment with a little more rigor than what’s been demonstrated today.”

A call placed to the Times Tuesday evening seeking comment from Rudoren was not immediately returned.