Jerome Slater, author of an important paper on
the American press's failures to tell us just
how bad life is in Palestine (in stark comparison
to the Israeli press's achievement in the same area),
has offered me another critique of recent Times coverage:
Until fairly recently, the New York Times customarily simply
reported, without comment, whatever U.S. government spokesman
or politicians running for office claimed about this
or that, no matter how obviously false or distorted the
statements. Lately, though, no doubt in response to the
increasingly widespread criticism of this practice, the Times
has occasionally been adding its own corrective commentaries
within the news stories, sometimes slyly, sometimes in
straightforward fashion.
Not when it comes to Israel, though. In this morning’s
Times, Steven Erlanger
reported that two armed soldiers from the Hebron settlement
of Kiryat Arba were shot and killed while hiking in the area;
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. Without comment, the Times
reported the Israeli police statement: two hikers were attacked
by “terrorists.”
In other words, two innocents, minding their own business,
were without provocation, murdered? If so, that would certainly
be “terrorism.” The plain facts of the matter are quite different:
two settlers, members of one of the most fanatical, irrational,
and violent Jewish settlements in the heart of Palestinian terri-
tory, who were also serving as soldiers in an increasingly repressive
army of occupation that now routinely kills Palestinians on an almost
daily basis, were shot and killed. That’s not “terrorism” but armed
resistance—even if done by a resistance group that on other occasions
does indeed employ terrorism.
The official language of the Israeli report, in short, is nothing
less than an all too common Israeli Orwellian perversion of language,
and thus understanding. For the Times to fail to even hint at that
is a dereliction of responsibility--to its readers, to the best interest
of Israel, and to simple truth.
(Weiss: I'd add one note. The article ends with a short paragraph
saying that Israeli soldiers had killed "at least" 7 Palestinian
"gunmen" in Gaza the day before. Obviously, these lives don't count
as much as the two armed hikers.)
Related posts:
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Weiss, this story is physically unreadable — the last word on every line goes off the end — better return to New Times Roman or something.
This post is unreadable Mr. Weiss.
But the Orwellian point is clear: Armed Israeli settlers = innocent hikers & oppressed Palestinians = terrorist gunmen.
Defense minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday, Jan. 2: If the Palestinian Authority lets them walk, Israel will track them down. DEBKAfile Reported that two of the Fatah murderers were members of Mahmoud Abbas’ security services.
Amihai and Rubin were on a hike when they were stalked and shot in cold blood by Ali Dandanes, 24, a Shariya court clerk with ties to Palestinian General Intelligence, and Amar Taha, 26, full-time member of the Palestinian National Security service. Both were from Hebron. They then turned themselves in to the Palestinian Authority to elude Israeli military pursuit. The wounded soldiers fought back and killed a third member of the band. The third hiker, a girl, escaped and phoned for help.
The PA and its heads, Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad secretly protected the two killers from Israeli capture to the point of putting out a false tale that the three Israelis had rendezvoused with the Palestinians for an illegal drug deal and fallen out.
The PA then asked the family of the dead Palestinian gunman, Bassal Natshe to ask Hamas in the Gaza Strip to take responsibility for the attack in order to get Abbas’ Fatah and PA off the hook. Hamas’ ally Jihad Islami consented and issued a statement.
Saturday, Fayyad paid a visit to Israeli president Shimon Peres. Pretending innocence, he promised that the Palestinian Authority would catch the killers and in future combat terror.
Only after the Shin Bet discovered the terrorists’ whereabouts and confronted the PA, did Palestinian officials admit that the two men they were harboring had plotted the attack and even posted a lookout to track their victims.
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