Nowhere is the anti-Israel bias of so much of the establishment press more evident than in its coverage of terror attacks and crimes committed by Palestinians.
One such example occurred almost a year ago in the Associated Press. In that instance, the story concerned a Palestinian who drove his car into a crowd and killed a three-month old baby girl. He was in turn shot and killed by the police when he tried to flee. The AP's initial headline read: "Israeli police shoot man in east Jerusalem." On Tuesday, the New York Times got into the act in a big way, in a headline and story by Diaa Hadid which gave rocks, which are after all inanimate objects, extraordinary powers (HT Kevin Williamson at National Review via Instapundit; bolds and numbered tags are mine):
Jewish Man Dies as Rocks Pelt His Car [1] in East Jerusalem
A Jewish man died early Monday morning after attackers pelted the road [2] he was driving on with rocks as he was returning home from a dinner celebrating Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, the Israeli authorities said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting to discuss rock-throwing, mostly by Palestinian youths. [3]
The man was identified in local news reports as Alexander Levlovich, 64. His death was reported as the police and Palestinian youths clashed for a second day [4] at a contested holy site in Jerusalem, amid tensions over increased visits by Jews for Rosh Hashana. The two-day holiday began at sundown on Sunday.
A statement from the Israeli police said the assailants were throwing stones on Sunday night on a road that runs between a Palestinian and Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem. The police said the stone-throwing “led to a self-inflicted accident,” as the man lost control of the car and smashed into a pole. [5]
Notes (drawing some inspiration from Williamson's NR rant):
[1] — This Jewish man didn't "die" (more on that in a moment). More to the point, isn't it amazing how the headline tells us that rocks just picked themselves up, selected a target, and pelted a car?
[2] — Really, now. These attackers just randomly pelted a road with rocks without aiming those rocks at anyone or anything in particular, and this poor man's car just happened to get into the path of these randomly thrown rocks. Amazing.
[3] — "Mostly" Palestinians? Somehow, I doubt that any Norwegian, Danish, or Turkish "youths" were involved. But it wouldn't surprise me if some of these "Palestinian youths" are older than 18, making them "adults," at least age-wise.
[4] — I doubt that the police got up in the morning and said, "Hey, this would be a great day to start clashes with Palestinians." On the other hand, it's very safe to say that the Palestinians were intent on clashing with the police. The proper description would be "as Palestinian youths clashed with police."
[5] — So it looks like even the Israeli police are getting into the PC act, at least preliminarily. It's quite obvious that if the stone throwing caused the man to lose control of his car and be killed, the stone throwers are directly responsible for the Jewish man's murder, i.e., he didn't just "die."
These are the obvious shortcomings in just the headline and first three paragraphs of the Times story. It went on badly from there, as NR's Williamson expertly noted in detailed fashion.
At the end of his post, Williamson, acting as if he was a Times editor — something which is either non-existent or staffed by people who let anything go through — asked, "ED: We’re not seriously thinking about running this copy as is, are we?"
Oh yes, they not only thought about it, they did it, "in print on September 15, 2015, on page A9 of the New York edition."
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
