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Times Watch for June 12, 2003

Middle East Moral Equivalency Watch

A deadly blast by the Palestinian terror group Hamas, and a counterstrike by Israel, motivate the Times into a familiar pattern of Middle East moral equivalence. On three occasions today, the Times portrays the deaths of Israeli citizens and Palestinian terrorists as equally worthy of condemnation and equally damaging to the “peace process.”

     #1: In “Bush Under Fire in Congress for Criticizing Israel,” reporters Steven Weisman and James Dao seem to characterize both the Israeli army and Palestinian terrorists as “militants.” Concerning the Hamas bombing of a busload of civilians (which left 16 people dead) followed by an Israeli strike on members of Hamas, Weisman and Dao write: “On a day of new attacks and counterattacks by Israeli and Palestinian militant forces, diplomats said there was concern in the administration that without dramatic improvement of some kind, the peace initiative known as the road map could founder.”

For the rest of Weisman and Dao’s story, click here.

     #2: A chronological chart of diplomacy and death in Israel, titled “Roadblocks to a Peace Plan,” lumps together the Israeli killing of terrorists and the Palestinian killing of Israeli civilians.

According to the Times chart, there are three kinds of violence: PALESTINIAN, ISRAELI and BOTH. The Hamas suicide bus bomber who killed 16 people in central Jerusalem on Wednesday, and the Israeli attack that same day on a car in Gaza carrying members of the terror group Hamas, are lumped together and the scenario labeled BOTH, as in both sides sharing the blame -- the Palestinians for the initial terror attack, and Israel for retaliating against the terrorists.

To see the rest of the chart, click here.

     #3: Times reporter Ian Fisher, reporting from Jerusalem in an audio file on the Times web site, again lumps Palestinian terror attacks and Israeli retaliation together, while worrying what it means for the peace process: “The Israeli government says they will continue to pursue militant organizations, terror organizations, and there was another strike in Gaza today in which seven more Palestinians were killed, apparently one was a senior Hamas leader. So, I think at the moment it looks as if there’s another round for, sort of, tit-for-tat violence, this time it’s unclear what the effect is going to be on this very young and fragile peace process.”

To hear all of Fisher’s report, click here.

NOTE: The Times internal investigation has uncovered ten more Jayson Blair articles containing mistakes, plagiarisms or fabricated quotes: See Story