ACCORDING TO ISRAEL HAYOM, the New York Times, in its unmitigated arrogance, has decided ”After analyzing over 1,000 pictures of the incident in which Palestinian medic Razan Al-Najar was fatally shot on Gaza border,” that “while IDF snipers did not target her, using live fire on crowd of violent protesters was ‘reckless’."
IF THE NYT “concludes” after looking at “over” 1000 pictures that the IDF only was “reckless” in using live ammunition to prevent hordes of Gazans from invading Israel — after repeatedly being warned and after other, non-lethal measures had failed to move the invaders back — than that must be the way it was.
Israel HaYom’s article is at
http://tinyurl.com/y8tyqqat.
The NYT article, headlined, How Times Reporters Froze a Fatal Moment on a Protest Field in Gaza is at
http://tinyurl.com/yahhq9sm.
I’m left with more than a few questions.
Having been a real reporter and editor — as reporting rather than spinning it — my first objection to the NYT article has nothing to do with WHAT the NYT mucky-mucks “concluded,” but article author Malachy Browne’s — and his editor’s — misuse of the language. Browne wrote that We analyzed over 1,000 photos and videos . Over? Perhaps he meant to write “more than”? Granted, I am a grammar curmudgeon (and proud of it), but the NYT promotes itself as an authority on almost everything. Like the military — ANY military — there is a right way, a wrong way, and, in this case, the NYT’s way.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND
Browne writes that My colleagues Yousur Al-Hlou and Neil Collier had met Rouzan during a reporting trip three weeks earlier and were struck by her charisma and her determination to help the injured. We felt duty bound to investigate her death — and, along with The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, David M. Halbfinger, spent five months doing so. He adds on the NYT site that We interviewed more than 60 people (witnesses, family members, friends, teachers, acquaintances, members of the Israeli army, and medical, legal and ballistics experts).
Snide comment: At least Browne correctly wrote “more than 60 people” rather than “over 60 people.”
The bottom line: the NYT staffers had a personal agenda: they met Rouzan during a reporting trip three weeks earlier and were struck by her charisma and her determination to help the injured before making for the invasion jumping off point.
”OVER 1,000 PHOTOS”
Browne claims he and his NYT associates discovered that most of the day was documented in pictures by journalists, protesters, medics and bystanders taking selfies. Over months of reporting from New York and Gaza, we collected more than 1,000 videos and photographs directly from the cellphones and cameras of more than 30 key witnesses.
This makes me think of the propaganda events staged by the nazis — gather everyone with a camera to record a staged event as if is was spontaneous. Hamas learned the lesson very well. This is not the first time Hamas has staged a shooting. See http://tinyurl.com/bwzwzy7; also see http://tinyurl.com/y8hon9lr
Still, “more than 1,000 videos and photographs” — note how the writer changes from “over 1,000 photos and videos” to “more than 1,000 videos and photos” — and all from only 30 devices: cell phones and cameras of various types. I wonder if he is counting video frames or whatever each image is called.
Browne admits, on the NYT site, that we realized that some pictures were out of sequence because the time was incorrectly set on several cameras. So we compared each device against an accurate clock to recalibrate the metadata and create a precise tick-tock of events.. If the NYT crew manipulated the time sequences, that suggests other things also may have been “adjusted.”
I like the NYT’s use of “tick-tock.” It suggests the mental age of its readers.
THE DENOUEMENT?
The alleged victim of IDF gunfire, according to the NYT, had testified against her own grandmother in a homicide case in which members of her family had sought to keep quiet. While certainly not proof that the bullet that killed the woman came from the Gaza side of the fence, it does suggest the possibility. Remember, the “Palestinians” — if the woman was a Gaza resident, she more than likely was Egyptian, as are most Gazans — consider murder of non-conformists as, albeit an oxymoron, a fact of life.
Despite the NYT absolving the IDF of "targeting” the woman, its personnel determined that an IDF bullet DID kill her. According to the NYT, she was killed by shrapnel “severing her aorta.”
Naturally the NYT labels the death of the woman as “possibly a war crime for which no one has been punished.” (If it IS a “war crime” there should be a trial before anyone is punished. Apparently the NYT does not deem a trial a requisite before punishment takes place.
The NYT wraps ups its “research” article by claiming ”During our reporting we learned that by August, 60 to 70 Gaza protesters had been killed “unintentionally.”
Not one word on Hamas sending its citizens to the fence; not one word about Gaza civilians throwing rocks and other objects at the Israelis. Not one word about the rockets and kite bombs sent by Hamas into Israeli civilian centers. Not one word.
Not one word why Hamas only targets the Israeli border and not the Egyptian border that remains as tightly shut as the Israeli side.
The NYT claims to “print all the news that’s fit to print.” What is “fit to print” is obviously a point of disagreement between the NYT’s editorial board and writers’ bias and the readers’ right to the full truth.
As far as the NYT is concerned, even though the IDF did not “target” the “medic” she still died from an IDF bullet.
LAW IN THE U.S.
The law in most U.S. states is that if the police kill a perpetrator in the act of committing a crime, no murder was committed. If the police kill a bystander — collateral damage — the perpetrator is charged with the death since had the criminal not been doing what he or she was doing there would never have been gunfire.
To this former reporter’s mind, Hamas — NOT the IDF — should ace criminal charges for any injury and death of its captive population as it is pushed to the fence. Hamas should be held liable for the death and injury of ITS citizens.
It is obvious, at least to my mind, that Hamas sends its civilians to attack the fence on and off at will; these attacks on the fence are as “spontaneous” as the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
Did the NYT even consider that the citizens of Gaza had a choice? Are they, like the suicide murders from the PA, modern day kamakazis? Children indoctrinated from their earliest days to hate Israel and the Jews.
If the NYT REALLY wants to tell the story of Gaza, let it begin at the beginning, when Egyptians settled there. Let it continue to include what the Gazans did to the infrastructure left when the Israels were driven out — not by Hamas, not by Egypt — by Ariel Sharon and the IDF. (It also might ask why Egypt refused Gaza when Begin offered to return it.)
READ NYT ARTICLE IN FULL
Read the entire article. Go to the source: http://tinyurl.com/yahhq9sm
Israel HaYom’s headline got it right: NY Times probe: IDF reckless but did not target Gaza medic — the operative word is TARGET.
PERSONAL NOTE
Medics are supposed to be non-combatants and, consequently, are not issued weapons, not even "smoke" genades.
Medics were outfitted — in addition to extra heavy packs — with helmets and arm bands that clearly identified us a medics (corpsmen if you prefer). Our gear showed a large red cross. In Muslim-dominated areas, including the PA, medics are identified by a red crescent. In Israel, by a red “Jewish star.”
Apparently in Gaza, the only way to identify a medic is by a white coat which, as we are led to believe by the NYT, is the only identification Ms. Al-Najar displayed. (Can’t Hamas “borrow” red crescent ID from the PA? Or perhaps it does not WANT to identify its medics.)
According to Israel HaYom, she allegedly was seen throwing a (smoke) grenade at the IDF. The NYT was unable to find footage of this.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
