Jerry Slater is the author of a groundbreaking study in the journal International Security arguing that the U.S. media's silence on the Israeli treatment of Palestinians has blinded American policy-making. Slater pointed out that Haaretz in Israel offers a far richer understanding of the desperation of the situation than does the New York Times.
Today Slater saw further evidence for his point and sent me this bulletin:
Today's New York Times' chief article on the Middle East (p. A10) is headed, in large type: "Palestinian Rocket Injures Child in an Israeli Kibbutz." Hardly a day goes by without reports in Israeli newspapers, especially Haaretz, about Israeli attacks that have killed Palestinians; though the intended targets are said to be Palestinian militants or “terrorists,” noncombatants, including women and children, are often killed as well.
Scarcely any of these attacks, by the occupiers and oppressors against the resistance,
are reported by the Times. Yet, an attack by the Palestinians against their oppressors,
which “lightly wounded” a child, merits a large headline and long story in the Times,
together with a sympathetic quote from an Israeli about how terrified the Israelis in
the area feel.
Needless to say, any indiscriminate attack that kills or wounds innocents is deplorable.
However, shamefully--and only too characteristically--the Times story made no mention of
how Palestinians felt about the ongoing, far larger, and more deadly Israeli attacks,
not to mention all the other forms of Israeli repression, all designed to maintain an
unjust and repressive occupation.
