Another NY Times Blood Libel

Dead center at the top of the Home Page in the online edition of Today's NY Times is the following story:

Let's stop for a moment and ask ourselves what the voracious news perusing, page clicking, online information junkie can take from a glance at the New York Times today:

1. Based on its prominent position/placement on their site, this is the most pressing story of the moment.

2.  Somebody is using war as a convenient cover for the deliberate targeting of journalists.

3.  The photo is of journalists in Israel.

4.  Conclusion:  Israel is targeting journalists.

No matter how much or little of the article has been read - even if it is just the picture and the caption - the Times has ensured that the voracious news perusing, page clicking, online information junkies can now click onward with this new 'fact' stored in their mental database... 'Israel targets journalists'.

It doesn't matter that more than 40,000 people have been slaughtered in the bloody Syrian crackdown right next door (including 435 foreign civilians!!!).  You won't see that on the front page of the Times or hear about Hillary Clinton and other world leaders flying to Damascus to demand an immediate cessation of violence.

No, only Israel gets that treatment.

If one clicks over to the main article from the picture above, the central kernel around which the piece is constructed is following quote about an unfortunate incident during the recent Gaza operation:

... three employees of news organizations were killed in Gaza by Israeli missiles. Rather than suggesting it was a mistake, or denying responsibility, an Israeli Defense Forces spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, told The Associated Press, “The targets are people who have relevance to terror activity.”

So it has come to this: killing members of the news media can be justified by a phrase as amorphous as “relevance to terror activity.”

I can think of scores of incidents over the past 50 years were journalists have been killed and wounded in war zones.  But I don't ever recall anyone making the claim that the dead or wounded media personnel were deliberately targeted.  Until now, that is.  Because Israel is the country in the dock.

In recent conflicts, Israel has either attempted to exclude journalists from the war zones altogether (knowing full well that their presence will be exploited by the enemy and make the IDF's job more dangerous / risky), or has resigned itself to having to issue continuous warnings to journalists as to what places are about to be attacked; reports that are instantly transmitted to the enemy.

In last week's operation, journalists were allowed to go into Gaza and were given few restrictions on their movement other than strict warnings to avoid close contact with Hamas operatives since they were obviously being targeted:

Israeli officials have said Hamas was using journalists and their operations as “human shields,” and a press officer for the Israeli Defense Force warned in a Twitter postthat reporters should be wary of the company they keep: “Advice to reporters in #Gaza, just like any person in Gaza: For your own safety, stay away from #Hamas positions and operatives.”

Conducting a military operation of this scale in an area as small and densely populated as Gaza without causing harm to civilians is already a nearly impossible task (although Israel has gone to greater lengths to protect civilians than any other country in any other modern conflict).  But the presence of a large number of journalists flitting around the battlefield, who are not reporting their presence to the officers directing the operation, complicates the task exponentially.

But for the New York Times, none of that is relevant.  All that is important to them is that journalists were injured and killed, so Israel deliberately targeted them.

The active malevolence against Israel on the part of the New York Times is so unabashed and palpable that to deny it is laughable, and to try to defend against it is like responding to questions like, "Are you still beating your wife?". 

The problem with such blood libels as are contained in today's NY Times piece, is that once they are whispered into receptive ears, they take on a life of their own and become accepted 'truths... part of 'the rocord'... 'facts'.