Elite American Newspapers- Deceptive at Best

The Washington Post and the New York Times are supposed to be the cream of American print journalism, yet, when it comes to the world's most high profile foreign policy issue- the Israeli/Palestinian conflict- both papers treat Israel to what amounts to "home team" coverage. Israeli casualties are consistently given bigger play than Palestinian ones, and the headlines often only refer to Palestinian "militants" or "gunmen" being killed, even when civilians and even children have also been killed. One can usually find out how many Palestinian civilans and children have died in Israeli attacks only by reading very deep into the article.

Take today's news coverage as an example- 5 Palestinian children,including a six month old baby, four young children out playing in the streets, and more than a dozen other Palestinians were killed yesterday, yet the major American print newspapers barely covered it. The New York Times headline is "Israel continues airstrikes in Gaza" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/world/middleeast/29mideast.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin, the lead of this article is that one Israeli civilian died, and the second paragraph refers to Israeli killing Palestinian "militants." The Washington Post coverage was even more misleading, with the headline, "Israel Kills 6 Palestinian Militants," http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022700620_2.html?hpid=moreheadlines with the lead refering to Israel targeting "suspected gunmen". The third paragraph briefly refers to a six month old baby dying, but you have to read almost to the very end of the story to read about the other children that were killed in the Israeli airstrikes.

If you look around the world and read how other media outlets covered the story- you see a very different picture. Most other major media outlets logically concluded that children being killed was more newsworthy than "gunmen" being targeted. The BBC ran the headline, " Four Children Die In Gaza Strike", http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7269154.stm, and refered to 21 Palestinians killed in the last two days, while noting that 5 Israelis, and more than 200 Palestinians have been killed since the peace talks in Annapolis. China's Xinhua news service ran the headline, "Israeli airstrike on N Gaza kills 3 children", http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/28/content_7689484.htm, while Al-Jazeera went with the headline, "Children killed in new Israeli raid", http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8DFE6441-E6D5-4165-AB32-605D1CDB01BD.htm. The Guardian newspaper in the UK featured a close-in photo of the dead six month old baby lying peacefully on a mosque floor, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/28/israelandthepalestinians2.

Headlines and photos matter because most people do not read entire articles. If you see a headline refering to "militants" or "gunmen" dying, will you bother to read the article? I mean, let's be serious, is it really very newsworthy when a militant dies? This article is not meant to suggest that the Palestinians are blameless- their rocket attacks are inexcusable, but you have to look at the context. A few of the articles referenced above note that a total of 14 Israeli's have died in the last 7 years from Palestinian rocket attacks. No question that that's 14 too many- but during that same period of time, literally thousands of Palestinians have been killed and many of them have been children and civilians. The Israeli Human Rights Group B'tselem reports that 4,419 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces in the occupied territories for the time period Sept 29, 2000 until January 31, 2008. During this same time frame, 234 Israeli civilians and 239 Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinians in the occupied territories, and 471 Israeli civilians and 87 soldiers were killed by Palestinians in Israel itself. According to B'tselem, more than half of the Palestinians killed were not "taking part in hostilities" against Israel. http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp Yet despite the wide disparity in casualties- more Israelis have died in car accidents during this time period than at the hands of Palestinians-the elite American news media continues to give short-shrift to Palestinian civilian casualties. Its a shame that papers like the Times and the Post can't just cover the news, and let Americans decide for themselves what's going on in the Occupied Territories.