The story in the New York Times earlier this week was disappointing.
It lacked balance. It did not provide any real depth and understanding od the subject matter. Facts were missing. It was an inadequate presentation.
It was “swoon” journalism. Its portrayal of criminal behavior was rapturous. It avoided any humanity for the victims, the civilians, the Jews. It blamed everyone but the "playful" Arabs. Arab educators were not called to task, even by inviting a quotation from someone and no comment was offered.
"In a West Bank Culture of Conflict, Boys Wield the Weapon at Hand" is another attempt by the NYT, seemingly, to contribute to the start of a new intifada [for a previous NYT attempt to push for violence, see here] or rather to the on-going current "low-intensity conflict" (here’s a recent one of the over 80 weekly to bi-weekly reports of the many hundreds of incidents of stone-throwing, molotov/firebomb tossing as well as shootings and stabbings over the past year - 99% directed at civilians, not soldiers).
Is the NYT preparing for the breakdown of the talks and the next expected (and promised) stage: an outbreak of violence?
It’s a story on Arab youngsters who feel they must try to kill Jews for, after all, it''s their "hobby":-
“Children have hobbies, and my hobby is throwing stones,” Muhammad [Abu Hashem, 17] explained weeks before his most recent arrest. “A day with a confrontation is better than a free day.”...Here in Beit Ommar...rock throwing is a rite of passage and an honored act of defiance. The futility of stones bouncing off armored vehicles matters little: confrontation is what counts.
"Futility"? Do they really think they are being futile in throwing stones and trying to kill Jews? And are those stones futile?
Yehudit Tayar''s translated reports on behalf of Hatzalah of Judea and Samaria have counted 5,635 attacks in the first half of 2013 against Jewish inhabitants of Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Greater Jerusalem regions alone, including 611 molotov cocktail attacks and 5,144 rock attacks. In addition, there were 8 shooting attacks and 3 stabbing attacks. In total, the violence left 1 person dead and 171 injured, including a 3 year-old girl who was seriously injured. The summary is here. That terror causes a lot of pain, with frayed nerves, insurance payments, having the Army patrol roads instead of borders, etc.
My neighbor''s son, a 5-month old infant, could have been a Bar Mitzvah in a few months. Yehuda Shoham was killed [he didn''t just die] by a rock that was thrown by Arabs through the windshield of his parents'' car traveling home to Shiloh.
The mantra of "settlements" are "illegal" is often repeated in the media but is stone-throwing a crime? In the United States it is as in other civilized places, including Israel, on both sides of the former armistice lines.
And despite including local data, as if the violence in restricted to that stretch of the road, the emphasis of the reporting is on attaching, constantly and consistently, sympathy and understanding to violence and evil. The village is a place where they even fly the Nazi flag.
When Jewish death is described, as in the deaths of "a man and his 1-year-old son who died" there are no names (the incident was when Asher Palmer and his son Yonata’s car was struck by a rock and it ran off the road) and the gang leader hurling the stones was convicted of murder. That’s not worthy of a mention?
As for persons of authprity and thus, responsibility, this is published without comment:
Musa Awad, a teacher at Beit Ommar’s high school,...like many here, views the stone throwers with a mixture of pride at confronting Israel and fear for their safety. “Nobody dares to criticize them and say, ‘Why are you doing this?”
The elders in authority forgive and even encourage this violent behavior.
We do find claptrap, though:
They throw because there is little else to do in Beit Ommar — no pool or cinema, no music lessons after school, no part-time jobs other than peddling produce along the road. They do it because their brothers and fathers did.
Jas we know, they do it because their grandfathers and great-grandfathers did - because the hate Jews.
The story’s “star”, Muhammad, is also practicing, perhaps, to escalate from stone to knives, like the Fogel Family incident:
He recently sneaked into a settlement before dawn to steal apricots he finds especially delicious because they grow on land he sees as stolen from his people.
This is a rerun of the "radical chic" of the late 1960s, the new "radical sheikh":
The reporter has been criticized previously, and often.
When will reporting become fit at the NYTimes?
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