Imagine the ‘Times’ leaving out deaths of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman in a story on Mississippi protests!

by on August 29, 2009 6

Patrick Connors has pointed out major omissions in the Ethan Bronner piece from Bi’lin in the New York Times that I celebrated earlier today:

Bronner notes 170 Israeli soldiers injured, three seriously,  in the "villages"–

“Since the beginning of 2008, about 170 members of the defense forces have been injured in these villages,” [the Israeli army] added, including three soldiers who were so badly hurt they could no longer serve in the army.

How many  protesters injured? No mention. Shouldn’t those parallel facts be included  in a "balanced" story: one killed in Bil’in and five in  Ni’lin, and countless other injuries, including very serious  injuries like American Tristan Anderson and Israeli Lymor Goldstein,  both w/ brain damage.

More remarkably, the main photo is of "the Elders" (Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu) visiting the grave of Bassem Abu  Rahme, killed in a protest in Bil’in. This is never explained.

These basic factual omissions come against a context where Bronner  says Israeli soldiers shoot "after" Palestinians throw rocks, a highly  debatable framing of what typically happens. In most cases the  soldiers shoot first. I had three unbiased, uninvolved friends read the article, all  agreed when I  shared the factual omissions, that these were major gaps  in a story they had otherwise believed was "fair" that Bronner should have included. This information shifted their perception of the accuracy of the  story.

Jonathan Pollak adds:

Another fact to note is that in Ni’ilin alone 38 people were shot
with live ammunition during demonstrations. Four of them died from their
wounds.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Beyondoweiss, Israel/Palestine

{ 6 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. lyn117 says:
    August 29, 2009 at 9:52 pm

    No mention, either, of how the soldiers were hurt. Maybe some tripped and fell, or breathed their own tear gas.

  2. DaveS says:
    August 30, 2009 at 10:45 am

    The Israeli claim that any soldiers were hurt is suspect. How is that confirmable? And three so badly hurt that they had to leave the army? What does that mean? It could mean that they were so disgusted by their assignment there that they refused to continue to serve. It could mean that the Israeli military excused them from military service so they could make this claim. It could mean anything, or nothing. Remember in Dec 08 when the Dignity, the ship bringing medical supplies only from Cyprus to Gaza, was rammed by the Israeli Navy, and Israel preposterously claimed that the Dignity had rammed the naval vessel. (I believe that this entire incident was never covered in the NYTimes at all.) Or the next month when Israel bombed a UN food storage warehouse, and Def Minister Marak said it was a terrible unfortunate error while Olmert said it was done on purpose because the devilish Hamas fighters had fired rockets from the warehouse. Books could be written about Israeli lies. Israel lies so casually and freely – why does anyone give any credence to any of their claims that cannot be confirmed? Why do people who are sensibly skeptical of anything the US govt says give the slightest bit more respect to Israeli govt statements? Yet Bronner dutifully repeats these claims without ever investigating their truth, while omitting confirmable Palestinian deaths and serious injuries. Frankly, I was a little surprised at Phil’s initial reaction praising the article. Its usual biases were obvious.

  3. Helena Cobban says:
    August 30, 2009 at 12:10 pm

    Bronner also ‘reports’ this: “Rioters hurl rocks, Molotov cocktails and burning tires at defense forces and the security fence,” the military said in a statement when asked why it had taken to arresting village leaders in the middle of the night … but he makes ZERO atempt to authenticate that claim.

    I’ve been at Bil’in, and seen Palestinian boys and youths throwing stones, sometimes with slingshots. I’ve never seen either ‘rocks’, Molotovs, or burning tires being thrown. Don’t you think if they had ever been thrown, the IOF would have video footage to prove it?

    Bronner really needs to start acting as (fact-sensitive) reporter, rather than just a govt stenographer.

  4. tree says:
    August 30, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    A quick perusal of the Haaretz archives turns up these stories from 2005:

    Allegations against Bili’in protest crumble in court

    Are the demonstrations in Bili’in against the separation fence really non-violent, as claimed by their Palestinian and Israeli organizers, or are they in fact violent protests involving the throwing of stones, as charged by the Israel Defense Forces?

    As expected, ever since the demonstrations there began, both sides have offered conflicting versions on the issue. Last week, however, a military court ruled that at least in the case before it, IDF soldiers had opened fire while Palestinians and Israelis were demonstrating in a non-violent manner and had not thrown stones. Military Judge Captain Daniel Zamir called for an examination of “the actions of the troops at the scene and the use of the force at its disposal.”

    ….

    The demonstration ended with the security forces deploying riot-dispersal means and in the arrest of a number of protesters, including Abdallah Abu-Rahma, one of the leaders of Bili’in’s Popular Committee, and his brother, Ratab, a lecturer at the Al-Quds University and a member of the Seeds of Peace organization.

    The indictment against Ratab Abu-Rahma was based primarily on testimony from Wahil Sabit, a border policeman present during the demonstration. Sabit testified that demonstrators started throwing stones at the security forces immediately after the area was declared a closed military zone. Sabit said he saw Abu-Rahma throw stones at the soldiers and then shot him with a sponge bullet.

    Sabit was the only policeman who claimed to have seen Abu-Rahma throwing stones.

    Abu-Rahma’s attorneys, Tamar Peleg and Gabi Lasky, presented the court with video clips that were filmed during the incident and that show Abu-Rahma asking the demonstrators to walk “slowly, slowly.” Two of the clips show the demonstrators moving the barbed wire barrier set up by the security forces, but not crossing it, only lying down on the road in quiet protest. Immediately thereafter, the soldiers are seen throwing stun grenades and tear-gas canisters toward the demonstrators, without the latter having thrown a single stone.

    Abu-Rahma is seen getting to his feet and then immediately being hit with a sponge bullet. Contrary to border policeman Sabit’s testimony, Abu-Rahma is not arrested there and then, but only some time later, after the security forces apprehend his brother and begin beating him. Ratab Abu-Rahma is seen intervening in an effort to help his sibling, and also takes blows from the soldiers.

    Judge Zamir upheld all the arguments of the defense, ruling that the demonstration was quiet, that no stone-throwing was seen on the videotapes, and that Abu-Rahma took a blow to his stomach without any provocation on his part. “There was no reason for the defendant’s arrest; there was no reason for the shooting that wounded him or the blows he received from the soldier,” concluded the judge, adding that the reality was “strangely different, to put it mildly, from the testimony of the prosecution witnesses.”

    (Note: This first story does note that an IDF soldier, Michael Schwarzman, lost his eye from a stone thrown during a protest a few months earlier. I found no details of that particular incident. )

    Second article:

    Border Police lie about violence at fence protests

    For more than six months, dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Palestinians have been demonstrating every weekend against the construction of the separation fence near the West Bank village of Bil’in. These demonstrations, defined by participants as peaceful, frequently turn into violent clashes with the Border Police’s Company 22, assigned to disperse the demonstrations.

    An investigation by Haaretz has found that policemen from that company have made false accusations against demonstrators and even made arrests on the basis of those accusations. Palestinians thus detained can be held for eight days before being brought before a judge.

    In other cases, soldiers gave false testimony about rock throwing and other violence when most of the protests were peaceful. However, there were instances in which Border Police were hurt by rocks thrown by demonstrators at Bil’in.

    In recent weeks, three judges harshly criticized troops after watching videotapes that nullified their allegations. In at least two cases the judges questioned the excessive force used against peaceful and restrained protesters. Footage taken by Shai Caremeli-Polack, who documents the demonstrations for the organization Anarchists Against the Wall, was presented in the various court hearings and contradicted the claims of Border policemen that the conduct of demonstrators had compelled them to use batons, kick and fire tear gas directly at the demonstrators.

    Third article:

    IDF fires tear gas on fence protesters in Bil’in

    Israel Defense Forces troops fired tear gas Friday at demonstrators Bil’in, a West Bank village west of Ramallah and the site of weekly demonstrations against the separation fence.

    The army said that the soldiers used the gas because the demonstrators burned tires. However, not one burning tire was found at the site, and no stones were thrown at the soldiers.

    What the gist of all three articles say is that there have been some injuries to IDF soldiers during some of the protests, but that oftentimes, as attested to by several Israeli judges, the IDF lies about protester violence and is itself the instigator of violence. Any current story without this proven background is incomplete and faulty.

    Also, from 2005, the IDF used “mistarvim” (undercover “Arab” army units) to engage in and provoke stone throwing.

    An example of the deliberate escalation of the situation, the Palestinians say, is a demonstration that was held in Bilin on April 28, the demonstration of the mistarvim (army undercover units who are disguised as Arabs). Despite the large number of participants, the organizers were able to uphold the decision to have a nonviolent demonstration, without stones. “Suddenly I saw six or seven people whom I don’t know throwing stones,” Hatib relates. “I ran over to them and asked them who they were and why they were throwing stones despite the decision that the demonstration would be nonviolent. One of them replied, in good Arabic, that he was from Safa and that they had come to help us. I told him to go throw stones in Safa, not here.”

    It was only afterward, when one of the stone-throwers pulled out a pistol and fired in the air, that Hatib realized the group were mistarvim. For him, that is proof that the army wanted to heat things up so it could break up the demonstration with the use of force.

    The Maccabim Brogade commander, Colonel Gedj, admits that the mistarvim – from the Masada unit of the Prisons Service – did indeed throw stones, but firmly denies that they were the first to do so. “They joined other Palestinians who were throwing stones. The Palestinians’ allegations are nonsense. I investigated and I am 100 percent convinced of that.”

    However, a judge in the Judea Military Court, Major Yair Tirosh, who heard a request to remand two Bilin residents in custody – they were accused of attacking one of the undercover men – wrote in his judgment: “There is no testimony by so much as one soldier that stones were thrown at him.”

  5. tree says:
    August 30, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    My source for the fourth quote about the Israeli mistarvim is this

    Gandhi Redux, part two

    Apparently 3 cites are the limit here, a fourth one in the same post gets a notification that your post is too”spammy”.

  6. DaveS says:
    August 30, 2009 at 3:31 pm

    How about this Haaretz article from the end of April 2005, entitled “MK among 10 hurt at anti-fence protest” Sorry I am not technologically adepts enough to give a better link.
    link to haaretz.com

    The gist of the article was that Israeli security forces acted as agents provocateurs by throwing stones at soldiers, thereby igniting violence in which the soldiers “fought back” and injured and arrested a number of demonstrators. According to the article: “During the clashes, undercover security forces mingled with the demonstrators and began to throw stones at the soldiers and police, demonstrators said. The undercover security forces had provoked the police and soldiers into opening fire with rubber bullets and tear gas. The demonstrators said they had not thrown stones at the soldiers and police.”

    OK, that’s the demonsrators’ side of the story. The military denied it, right? Well, not exactly. “Military sources charged that Barakeh and the commander of the forces at the scene had not exchanged words; the sources added that the undercover forces had only started throwing stones after Palestinian youths had adopted such tactics. “Stone-throwing by the undercover forces is part of the way in which they operate in such instances,” the sources said .” So the military sources admit that their undercover forces throw stones!!! God forbid a demo be actually non-violent. Israeli undercover officers to the rescue! Anybody ever see this story in the NY Times?

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