On Friday, Israeli soldiers shot dead 6 Palestinians in Gaza, who were behind the border fence. In the New York Times, Jodi Rudoren said the Israeli troops “opened fire to quell crowds that hurled rocks and rolled burning tires close to the fence separating Gaza from Israel. . .”
Lower in the story, she added:
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israeli military said there were more than 1000 men ‘attempting multiple times and at multiple locations to storm the border fence throughout the day,’ hurling projectiles including a grenade.
Joel Greenberg, a veteran journalist, covered the same story for the Financial Times. Here are two paragraphs from Greenberg’s report:
Officials in Gaza said six Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded. Witnesses said the shots were fired by snipers at Israeli guard posts along the fence, where Israel enforces a 100-meter-wide no-go zone inside Gaza.
The [Israeli military] spokeswoman could not explain why troops had not instead used non-lethal crowd control weapons, such as tear gas and rubber bullets, routinely used by Israeli forces against violent protests in the West Bank.
There are two possible explanations for Rudoren’s extraordinary bias here.
- She is an incompetent, who does not know that an elementary rule in journalism is to interview both sides, instead of working as the stenographer for one of them. If true, we recommend that she study Joel Greenberg’s work.
- She knows full well how reporters are supposed to work, but she deliberately set out to cover up the fact that Israeli snipers and other soldiers may have deliberately murdered six Palestinians.
RE: “The [Israeli military] spokeswoman could not explain why troops had not instead used non-lethal crowd control weapons, such as tear gas and rubber bullets, routinely used by Israeli forces against violent protests in the West Bank.” ~ Joel Greenberg
MY QUESTION: Has Israel run out of skunk water? Wouldn’t that be an effective, non-lethal way of enforcing the 100-meter-wide no-go zone? Is it just too expensive to use?
Sheldon Adelson wants his son to grow up to be a sniper in the IDF.
Sheldon Adelson saying he “unfortunately” wore the uniform of the American military not the Israeli army, and that he wants his son to be a sniper for the Israeli army (4:45 on). “All we care about is being good citizens of Israel.” – See more at: https://mondoweiss.net/2012/01/isikoff-blast-at-gingrich-backer-israel-is-in-my-heart-puts-israel-firster-issue-in-mainstream#sthash.aSew2uSd.dpuf
James,
It’s the third hypothesis that applies:
3, Rude-Oren knows how journalism is supposed to be done; she also knows how to distort and obscure, but she doesn’t care anymore and neither does the NYT: Zionism is in full in-your-face-arrogance mode. What she is effectively conveying is that murder by the World’s definition is no longer so when done by her tribe.
And you know what? Pushing that shameless version is meeting with moderate success.
@James North – Door number 2 please.
Why don’t the Israelis use non-lethal means? The Chinese call it killing a chicken to scare the monkeys. I am sure Zionists are hoping that cold-bloodedly killing a few protesters (or cockroaches/grown up snakes in their parlance) will have a more salutary effect than less deadly means.
BTW, thank you Mr. North for your work!