© Reuters / Suhaib SalemAftermath of Israeli air strikes on Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV, Gaza City, November 13, 2018.
A Twitter account "Editing The Gray Lady," which tracks edits to the Times, revealed on Monday how the US paper of record changed its headlines and copy to describe the events in Gaza.
"Incredible propaganda," Ben Norton, a New York-based writer for The Real News, commented on the edits, adding that the Times "bent over backward and rewrote its article to erase how Israel initiated the violence in Gaza, obscuring the fact that Gaza's self-defense was 'retaliatory' and instead pushing the covert Israeli operation until the end."
That attracted the attention of the Israeli consulate in New York, however, which admonished Norton to "get it right."
Norton was having none of it, laying out a timeline of events in Gaza and insisting he did get it right and the consulate was wrong.
"If the terrorist propaganda TV station of a genocidal terrorist group like Hamas is your source of news, we understand exactly what sort of 'journalist' you are," the consulate replied.
"Bombing a TV station of a news outlet is a war crime, even if you don't like the journalists running it," Norton shot back.
This is hardly the first time Israeli diplomats have used Twitter to directly address journalists reporting on the conflict. In August, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon accused the BBC of lying over a Gaza story and demanded the British broadcaster "change it IMMEDIATELY."
In July, Nahshon lashed out at CNN International to "STOP YOUR MANIPULATION," saying they "got it wrong and not for the first time."
Comment: When identity-politics nationalism is your god, lying becomes a necessity and morality a hindrance. Norton is correct: Israel started it. Hamas's rocket launches were retaliatory. But in Israeli propagandists' eyes (Ben Shapiro among them), Israel can do no wrong. It only ever acts in self-defense, even when it doesn't. That includes when it murders children, journalists, medics, aid workers...