Furkan Dogan was a 19-year-old American who lost his life because of the Israel-Palestine conflict. He opposed the Israeli blockade of Gaza and in May 2010 went on the flotilla to Gaza. When Israeli commandos boarded the boat he was on in international waters, he sought to film the event and was shot four or five times, execution-style.
When the New York Times referred to this episode on Saturday in a frontpage story on the “siege” that Israel is experiencing in international opinion, it said that Israel had killed 9 Turks in that raid. Dogan also had Turkish nationality.
But the Times is an American newspaper, read mostly by Americans. Shouldn’t Americans know about the cost to their fellow citizens of this conflict? What is the Times hiding?
Take it further– to the attacks of 9/11. Even the 9/11 Commission stated that the Palestinian issue was important to the 9/11 hijackers. I’ve generally heard reports that it was the second most important issue to the hijackers.
In all the coverage of 9/11, how many of our newspapers said that the attacks had anything to do with our endless support for Israel? (And I’m not going to talk here about Bobby Kennedy, Rachel Corrie, James V. Forrestal, and the men on the USS Liberty– all collateral damage to the special relationship.)
A lot of Americans would choose not to abandon the special relationship with Israel even if this issue was pointed out to them. Fair enough. (Though Reagan cut and ran from Lebanon when we lost 240-some soldiers in that attack on the Marine barracks– didn’t think the cause was worth it.) But don’t our journalists owe us a better accounting of the price that we are paying? Shouldn’t we at least discuss it?
[Update: initial post said 280-some lost in Lebanon. Figure was closer to 240.]
