Friday, September 15, 2006
By: Joseph Feldschuh
1623 Third Avenue, Suite 205, New York, NY 10128
Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717;
E-mail http://us.f538.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=afsi@rcn.com Website; http://www.afsi.org/
Contact: Barry Freedman, Executive Director; September 14, 2006
New York Times Daily Review
By: Joseph Feldschuh
Thursday, September 14, 2006
The New York Times had a front page picture and an article about suffering in Gaza. The article focused on the deprivation within Gaza that has occurred since European countries stopped sending money over to the Palestinian authorities since Hamas, an organization designated as terrorists, took over. The article focused on lack of salaries, hinted that there might be some malnutrition, and mentioned the fact that there is a 50% unemployment rate. It also told the sad story of a 33 year old female married to a partially disabled worker who, however, has managed to have 11 children and is dependent on UN welfare. The husband is obviously not disabled enough to keep reproducing, and they might be good for 15 children.
The article does mention the ambush attack in which 2 soldiers were killed inside Israel and 1 soldier kidnapped is still being held. The article on the inside page was approximately a half page long and was informative because interviews with Palestinians who voted for Hamas indicated they just did not have enough time to accomplish their goals. The reporter obviously didn’t think to question them about their goal to destroy Israel.
Another article revealed that Amnesty International, which in the middle of August accused Israel of committing war crimes, has now announced that Hezbollah also committed war crimes when Hezbollah shot 4,000 rockets into Israel. They said the firing if rockets into civilian centers was an act of international crime. However, they refused to acknowledge Israel’s claim that Hezbollah deliberately placed rockets in civilian areas so as to draw fire.
Taken by themselves, these articles may appear reasonably neutral. Taken out of context, this is another set of pictures of suffering and deprivation among Arabs, this time Palestinian Arabs instead of Lebanese Arabs. This just continues the daily litany by the Times of the dissemination of anti-Israeli propaganda. Again repeated is the quote by the Hamas leader that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. According to Hamas, of course, all of Israel is Palestinian land. A reasonable article would have pointed this out.
We are still waiting to see if the times will interview the family of an Israeli who was killed or seriously wounded by the Hezbollah rocket attacks.
The New York Times made the news in another way today. Mr. Sulzberger, the publisher of the Times, asked his board of directors to take a pay cut. The New York Times is vulnerable if its financial base can successfully be attacked. Americans deserve a paper of record where editorials are kept to the editorial page and where balanced reporting is part of the rest of the newspaper.
