On Friday's Wolf show on CNN, during an interview with Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, substitute host Jim Sciutto cited a quote from State Department Spokesman John Kirby accusing Israeli security forces of using "excessive force" against Palestinians as he charged that Israelis have been using "live fire" to shoot at "unarmed protesters."
Yassir Arafat
By Clay Waters | August 25, 2014 | 10:08 PM EDT
As of Saturday, Fares Akram, the New York Times correspondent in Gaza usually relegated to second billing or "contributed additional reporting" on stories, is being credited with lead bylines. The timing for Akram's higher profile is inauspicious, given a recent Forbes investigation by Richard Behar on the media's slanted coverage of Israel, especially the Times, which he called "the most important media outlet in the world...widely regarded the most authoritative media outlet in the world for international coverage."
Behar dug up a photo on Akram's Facebook page of Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorist leader Yassir Arafat that Akram previously used as his profile photo. Arafat was responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics and has been lionized by the Times for his "heroic history" as a "father figure of Palestinian nationalism."
By Clay Waters | July 5, 2012 | 3:12 PM EDT
Not even in death will the New York Times accurately describe Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yassir Arafat as a terrorist.
In a January 6, 2005 story not long after Arafat's death, then-Jersualem bureau chief Steven Erlanger described Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as having "no heroic history like that of his predecessor as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasir Arafat...."