The Times' Belated Discovery of Incitement

CAMERA has an excellent post that raises a relevant question about Steven Erlanger's article the other day on Palestinian incitement:

What took him so long? Why did he only address this issue when he was leaving the area?

CAMERA asks: "Did he not feel safe to report on incitement while he was working in the West Bank and Gaza Strip?"

Obviously not.

Moral Equivalence in the New York Times

"A picture is worth a thousand words," goes the old saying, and the four pictures used by the New York Times today, in its article on the Dimona suicide bombing, made the following statement: that there is moral equivalence between the victims and perpetrators of terrorism.

The online version of the article is here, but it does not have the photo array that there was in the print edition. In print, the Times showed four photographs -- one of the suicide attack, one of Israelis in Dimona, one of the tearful mother of one of the bombers and the other of Arabs throwing stones at the Gaza-Egypt border.

In this farcical attempt at "even-handedness," the Times demonstrates its morally corrupt practice of showing equivalence between the victims of terrorism and the terrorists themselves.

It would be the same as showing a photo of the victims of Auschwitz and the poor grieving mothers of the SS men who committed the persecution. I can't think of a better example of the Times's biased coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Fan Mail

This came in the other day:

Hey, I came across your blog and have these thoughts:

The international solidarity movement is peaceful...dumbass. Try reading up on your history too. Your blog doesn't cite history well. They're called books. In English you read the words from left to right. Try using facts instead of repeating information you got from your minister or president. They're not always telling the truth. But, you jackass, right-wing fascist, douches seem to take their bullshit for reality. I can't wait for death, I'll finally be far away from people like you!

Have a nice Day! You suck,

I love it! Keep those cards and letters coming in, Moonbats.

Say That Again?

We sometimes forget that newspaper reporters must report to editors who supposedly know more than they do, especially at newspapers like the New York Times. So pay close attention to this correction that appeared in the Times today:

Because of an editing error, a front-page article on Thursday about the entry of tens of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt after Hamas militants destroyed part of a fence at the border with Gaza described incompletely the events regarding Gaza and Egypt three decades ago. In that era, Egypt accepted the return of Sinai from Israel but declined to take back Gaza, not just the Gazan half of the border city of Rafah. The article also misstated, in some editions, the location of the border. It separates Gaza from northern Egypt, not southern Egypt.

This is really mind boggling. The foreign desk of the "newspaper of record" can't even get its facts straight on simple stuff like that?

With the Times messing up the small stuff, it's no wonder that it messes up the big picture, and continually underplays Arab terrorism against Israel.

The Times and the 'Killer Vet'

The following blog post is reprinted with permission from Bruce Kesler of the Democracy Project:

5219 words, and what do you get?
Another week older, and deeper in killer vet

With apologies to Tennessee Ernie, that’s how I felt while reading this week’s installment of the New York Times’ series “War Torn,” already torn to shreds from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to the New York Post to any sentient being in the blogosphere during the past week as transparent, statistically silly, dangerously damaging agenda journalism.

This week, the series delines the descent from Mormon alter boy to mentally wracked Iraq veteran to confessed murderer of his childrens’ mother. It’s truly chilling. The NYT’s points out the occasions where either the military, the VA or the Marine himself missed possible opportunities for stronger intervention. Like a macabre thriller, where the terrible ending is already known, one wants to yell out, “please help him.”

This week, the NYT’s points out:

Clearly, Mr. Smith’s descent into homicidal, and suicidal, behavior is not representative of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. But among the homicide cases involving recent war veterans examined by The New York Times, Mr. Smith’s stands out because his identity as a psychologically injured veteran shaped the way that his crime was perceived locally and handled by local authorities.

His crime was treated compassionately, with consideration of his obvious remorse and the trials he’s seen. That’s commendable.

Really, not to take away from this story telling, it’s still not a telling story about our servicepeople serving.

The fact of the matter is that there’s a lesser incidence of violence upon return to civilian life than among non-serving civilians. See here for example.

The NYT’s choice of focus, however, is upon the rare exceptions, and at a forecast total tens of thousands of words, the size of a book. Instead, where’s the focus upon the statistically greater successes in adjustment among veterans, greater civilian career successes than non-serving cohorts?

When that happens on the pages of the NYT’s, we’ll be more willing to believe it has compassion for veterans rather than exploitation of a few’s sad trails.

— Bruce Kesler