A source on politics, war, the Middle East, Arabic poetry, and art.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
The Ethan Bronner-Isabel Kershner Israeli propaganda machine
This has become a pattern in the New York Times. Israeli terrorists kill and maim Arabs and the New York Times barely report on the story. Yet, some unnamed Israeli military propagandists calls in New York Times correspondents for a lengthy propaganda statement which is printed in full in a lengthy article in the New York Times. Of course, the New York Times barely reported on the murder of Jawahir Abu Rahmi but it found it necessary to devote more than half a page for Israeli military propagandists to peddle their lies: "The woman’s relatives, village leaders and staff members at the hospital in Ramallah where she was treated said that she was fatally sickened by tear gas fired on Friday by Israeli forces during the weekly protest against Israel’s separation barrier in the Palestinian village of Bilin. Her mother said she and her daughter, Jawaher Abu Rahmah, were watching the protest from a distance when a cloud of tear gas wafted their way, causing her daughter to collapse. But Israeli military officials, who insisted on anonymity while their investigation was continuing, told various journalists and bloggers that they had never heard of tear gas killing anyone in the open, and raised the possibility that she had some pre-existing ailment that, alone or compounded by the tear gas, caused her death." As it this was not enough, Kershner had to re-argue the case of Muhammad Ad-Durrah: "Israel first apologized for the death of the boy, Muhammad al-Dura, then concluded he had probably been killed by Palestinian fire. Some critics even charged that the whole episode had been staged." Who are those critics, o Ms. Isabel Kershner, who charged that the whole episode was staged? Was blood staged? Was the funeral of Durrah staged? Was the grief of his family staged too for the cameras?