RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2010/09/01/seeing-red-jewish-blood-on-the-west-bank-its-portrayal-in-the-western-media/

Seeing Red: Jewish Blood on the West Bank, Its Portrayal in the Western Media

Tales From The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post

Four young civilians — human beings, fathers, mothers, one of whom was also pregnant, collectively the parents of seven children — were brutally gunned down by armed, masked terrorists. Their murders were openly celebrated in the streets by their attackers and by thousands of their supporters.

You would think that the world would recoil in horror — or that those who report the news, worldwide, would do so. Think again. These four precious souls were Israeli “settlers” and, as such, have already been so demonized that they are now seen as having provoked their bloody, pitiless deaths.

First, they came for the settlers. Then, they came for the secular Israeli pro-peace demonstrators in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv. And then they came for ….you and me.

Predictably, sadly, my three local area New York City newspapers present this tragic news in very different ways.

Tali and Yitzhak Ames with five of their children

Kochava Even-Chaim

Avishai Schindler

Allow me to first quote from the Bible of the intelligentsia, aka the New York Times, which presents this incident on page 4, not on page 1; the early pages are usually reserved for all incidents in which Israelis fight back so that Israeli “evil” is seen immediately and framed as among the most “important” world news of the day. The accompanying Times headline? Unbelievably, it is this: “Killing of 4 Israeli Settlers on the Eve of Peace Talks Rattles Leaders on Both Sides.” It’s really not clear who killed the “settlers.”  What is clear is that “both sides” are “rattled.” The piece opens with a paragraph that made me see red, both literally and metaphorically. It reads as follows:

“The killing of four Israeli settlers, including a pregnant woman, in the West Bank on Tuesday evening rattled Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the eve of peace talks in Washington and underscored the disruptive role that the issue of Jewish settlements could play in the already fragile negotiations.”

Note: This opening paragraph literally blames the past and future peace failures on the Israeli settlements. The Times neither blames nor characterizes Hamas accurately. It does not say the Arab Muslim terrorist group, Hamas — the Palestinian version of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, probably also backed by Iran and Hezbollah, and the group which is claiming responsibility for the attack — is also responsible for a deadly civil war with the not-so-moderate President Abbas; an Islamist war on Palestinian women, homosexuals, and dissidents; and a jihadic war against the Jews, which began a long time ago and which will never stop until either such terrorist leaders and their propaganda are utterly vanquished militarily or until the Jews have been driven out of the Holy Land once again.

On the contrary. The piece also positions President Mahmud Abbas as the “good” guy who, like his negotiating partner, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has “condemned” the attacks. Yes — even as Abbas is busy honoring the Palestinian terrorist who planned the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games, Amin Al-Hindi, as well as the Palestinian terrorist Omar Muhammad Ziyada, who murdered an Israeli civilian in a human bomb homicide in 2002.

The Gray Lady does not even tell us the names of the Israeli civilian victims, nor are they in any way humanized. Their histories are not presented. They are only “particularly militant settlers”: faceless, shadowy figures. We are not supposed to care about them. We do learn what Hamas said about the attack, namely that it was a “natural response to the crimes of the Israeli occupation and its settlers.” We also learn that “hundreds” of Hamas supporters “took to the streets … to celebrate the news of the attack.”

Shame on you, Isabel Kershner and Mark Landler (who share this byline of infamy), and shame on your editors.