Can't take the heat: 'NY Times' coverage of Gaza turns biased again, pressure from Israeli Hasbara Central

James North
Mondoweiss
Sat, 14 Apr 2018 21:44 UTC

After a hopeful improvement, the New York Times coverage of the Gaza protests is unfortunately back to its normal one-sided reporting - and intense pressure from Hasbara Central is surely a major reason. Take a look at this tweet yesterday, as the paper's main reporter, David Halbfinger, jumps to respond to a pro-Israel critic:

Sure enough, Halbfinger promptly added the following sentence to his article: "At another point, an explosive was hung from a kite, but fell on the Palestinian side."

Ever since Halbfinger's first decent report a week ago, he has faced a barrage of attacks on Twitter and elsewhere from pro-Israel forces. Camera takes credit for its "correspondence" with the Times, saying it led the paper to include the assertion in news coverage that the Palestinian right of return "would amount to the destruction of Israel by demographic means." So it may be no surprise that Halbfinger is backing down.

A question: will the Times respond with the same speed to criticism from our side? Here goes:

Why doesn't today's article point out again that not one single Israeli, soldier or civilian, has gotten even a scratch over the past 3 weeks, while Israelis have killed 34 Palestinians and wounded many hundreds more? (The latest article in the Guardian does report no Israeli casualties whatsoever.)
Why does the article not include a single quotation from any human rights organizations? B'Tselem, the respected Israeli group, continues to call for Israeli soldiers to refuse to open fire, but you won't learn that in today's Times. (The Washington Post quotes Amnesty International.)
Why won't the Times note that not one single rocket has been fired from Gaza? If "Hamas" were truly intent on "invading" Israel, wouldn't they already be firing away?
Why won't Halbfinger note that the United States helped block an independent investigation at the United Nations into Israel's crimes against the Gazan demonstrators - a point made on the Times's own editorial page?

Finally, where was the open letter from five former Israeli army snipers, who said they were "filled with shame and sorrow"? The Guardian found room for them:

Instructing snipers to shoot to kill unarmed demonstrators who pose no danger to human life is another product of the occupation and military rule over millions of Palestinian people, as well as of our country's callous leadership, and derailed moral path.

Maybe David Halbfinger and the New York Times need to have some of these questions raised on their Twitter accounts?

Reader Comments

Woodsman · 2018-04-15T01:40:12Z

Israel isn't at war with Palestine. (It's in the dominant position of a violently abusive relationship with Palestine). Israel is at war with the world via public perception and media.

We were all taught at a young age that, "Consensus, News-delivered, Important, Serious TV Reality" mattered. -That a thing didn't officially even exist in the public mind until it had been spoken into existence by the Suits and Haircuts.

What a funny thing! What a strange way to be!

We have the reality which is real, extant all around us, and then there is the reality which we all agree to respect and respond to as a larger societal entity. When I was a kid, I knew the difference. I hoped and wished that maybe some day, the News People would report on the stuff I cared about, so that it would be real, and that everybody would see what I saw! I would be proven right! (I can't recall what exactly a seven year-old would care about and wish the news would cover, but I remember the feeling of it. That the News had the power to make something Real.)

Wow. Think about that! How does that even happen? There were no TVs in the Stone Age. Where did this feature of humanity come from? How did that get coded into us?

Some of us, even as adults, don't realize at all that there is a difference. Their reality is governed by TV News and Newspaper Reality. (Who even has a TV or gets the morning paper anymore? Is the NYT more than a concept at this point? A collective figment of our imaginations? When was the last time you even held a copy, not even of it, but of your local paper?)

The more wise among us have learned that there is difference between real reality and the consensus ( pretend) one our official organs go along with.

So sure, yeah, "poor, needy, misunderstood Israel and their not-black-and-white problems."

Sure. Don't forget to mention the pathetic failed kite bomb. (Are they serious?? ) Gotta justify their high-tech butchery of civilians and reporters.

Goddamned psychopathic nation.

They're as conceptually violent toward you and me through the media world, bullying people to repeat the preferred lies, as they are to the people living next to them whom they shoot at with real bullets. Villains.

Lemuel Gulliver · 2018-04-15T09:44:53Z

@Woodsman: "Villains"?? No, not villains, rather, filthy bloodsucking shitheads. The most vile and foul nation on the planet, in these days of degeneracy and evil, mostly promoted and sold to our children for money by them, The Chosen. Chosen for what and by whom? Chosen to corrupt and destroy everything good and holy in the world, by their God, Lucifer.