Missing the point and the target

By Remi Kanazi
Online Journal Contributing Writer

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_937.shtml

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The apathy for the loss of innocent Palestinian life continues in the US media. On June 20, CNN.com, Yahoo, and the online of edition of The New York Times did not report the killing of a woman and one of her relatives in her home on the front page of their respective publications. The BBC, Le Monde, Haaretz and most online news sites based outside the US did cover the killing on their front page. Media bias pertaining to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not a new occurrence. In March, I discussed a study by If Americans Knew:

“In 2004, If Americans Knew -- an American organization that exposes and examines the facts of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict -- reported that 808 Palestinian conflict deaths occurred while 107 Israelis conflict deaths occurred. The study, however, found that The New York Times covered Israeli deaths in the headline or the first paragraph in 159 articles -- meaning in some cases they covered the same death numerous times. In contrast, The New York Times only covered about 40 percent of Palestinian deaths -- 334 of 808 -- in the headline or in the first paragraph of the articles. Nearly eight Palestinians died for every one Israeli.”

Unfortunately, The New York Times is one of the more liberal and “fair and balanced” of the outlets.

Onlookers in the West should not be surprised by the recent Israeli assault. Although the initial coverage of the killing of the family members picnicking on a Gaza beach two weeks ago was a PR disaster for the Israeli military and government -- both tried to spin the bad press and cover up the situation. While the first proclamation by the Israeli government was an apology for the killings, the Israel Occupation Force (IOF) backed off from the initial account attributing blame to the Israeli Air Force. The IOF, after an “investigation” that concealed the evidence, said that the deaths were caused by a mine planted by Hamas. The mine theory was passed off to the media as fact, without any evidence to back up the claim. The IOF finally admitted that the deaths could have been caused by an old Israeli shell that was at the beach site. Palestinian medics, human rights groups and bystanders at the site corroborated the initial evidence -- that the deaths were caused by an Israeli shell. Nonetheless, every major US media outlet covered the official Israeli story, including CNN, The New York Times and most of the other outlets that “forgot” to cover the latest liquidation of Palestinian civilians...

This is an excellent article.