Times Deletes 'Road Map' Reference

In an item yesterday, I described how the New York Times -- in a seeming reversal of its longstanding policy -- had cited dismantling terrorist groups as a Palestinian obligation under the Road Map for Peace. The Times usually dismisses this crucial responsibility, which the Pals haven't even attempted to carry out, as an Israeli or American "demand."

Well, guess what? The Times deleted from the print edition the reference to the Road Map that had appeared in an early version of the story, by Times reporter Greg Myres, that it posted on the web at about 2 p.m., Eastern time, yesterday.

Here's what ran on the web yesterday. See for yourself -- at this writing it is still on the web at this link:

Mr. Abbas is trying to build support for a resumption of full-scale negotiations based on the Middle East peace plan, known as the road map.
But Israel has demanded that Mr. Abbas break up the armed Palestinian factions, as called for in the road map.

But if you go to the print edition of the Times this morning, available at this link, you can see that the words "as called for in the road map" are excised. (Apparently the Times forgot to cover its tracks by deleting the earlier version of the story.)

Isn't this amazing? The Times feels so strongly about omitting Palestinian references to the Road Map that when a correspondent does so, an editor in New York cuts it out!

By so doing, the faceless Times minion kept untarnished the Times's unbroken, consistent policy of refusing to make any reference, in its news pages and editorials, to the Palestinians' clear obligations to fight terrorism. It is a policy that is strictly enforced, as you can see.