Yep, They Did It: Times Deletes Rare Abbas Criticism

The men with the blue pencils are hard at work at the New York Times, enforcing that newspaper's rigid adherence to a pro-Palestinian slant in its coverage.

Earlier today I linked to an article posted on the Times website that made the following pointed, rare observation about Palestinian boss Mohammed Abbas:

Mr. Abbas himself criticized the [Hadera] bombing on practical, not moral grounds, saying that it "harms the Palestinian interests and could widen the cycle of violence, chaos, extremism and bloodshed." He has said previously that all responses to Israeli violations of the cease-fire must be considered collectively by the Palestinians.

But in a speech to the Palestinian parliament on Wednesday, he refrained from condemning Islamic Jihad. Even when Islamic Jihad has taken credit for terrorist attacks, like the suicide bombings in Tel Aviv Feb. 25 and Netanya on July 12, Mr. Abbas has not criticized the group by name. A senior Israeli intelligence officer said that Mr. Abbas had been warned last week that Islamic Jihad was about to fire rockets toward Israel from Gaza "but did nothing about it."

The above, slightly condensed, is still in the online story linked above.

But in a revised online version which was posted at 10 p.m. and the print edition Oct. 28, everything I quoted above has been cut out. Here's how it reads now:

Mr. Abbas said the bombing "harms the Palestinian interests and could widen the cycle of violence, chaos, extremism and bloodshed." But in a speech to the
Palestinian parliament on Wednesday, he refrained from condemning Islamic Jihad.

It's happened before, and it has happened again. Even when Times correspondents try to insert stuff that's unflattering to the Palestinian leadership, Times editors -- guardians of the paper's longstanding anti-Israel bias -- cut it out.