'Spinning the Egyptian Anti-Israel Protest'

NY Times ignores Israeli killing of Egyptians.

Ethan Bronner photo courtesy: israelmatzav.blogspot.com

(SACRAMENTO antiwar.com) - Today's New York Times front-page story on Egyptian protests against the Israeli embassy largely neglects a primary cause of the anger: Israeli forces' killing of five Egyptians. Egyptian outrage over these deaths grew even greater when Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak refused to apologize.

Only in the third-to-last paragraph of today's article, which emphasizes Israeli victimization, does the Times mention that an "episode" that may be related to the Egyptian protests is the "accidental Israeli shooting of at least three Egyptian soldiers inside their territory..."

The Times fails to report that the Egyptians were not just shot, they were killed; that most reports say the victims were policemen (i.e. civilians), not soldiers; and that the number is five, not three.

It is noteworthy that the Times' doesn't bother to discover the number of Egyptians killed, content with simply saying "at least." Over two weeks after the deaths, the precise number should not be difficult to ascertain. It is hard to imagine Mr. Bronner being so blithe about Israeli deaths, which the Times covers at disproportionately high rates.

The Times provides no information about these Egyptian deaths: there are no names, no interviews with grieving families, no descriptions of their agony, no photographs. Their killing is simply called "accidental;" an adjective it is difficult to recall Mr. Bronner ever using to describe the deaths of Israelis.

The Times also fails to include the fact that Israeli forces then killed 14 Gazans, including two toddlers and a 13-year old (and injured at least 50), whom they chose to hold responsible for a lethal border attack by unknown gunmen against Israel, and that in the past two weeks Israeli air strikes have killed 9 more Palestinians, including a 13-year-old. In the past few days Israeli forces have abducted at least 5 Palestinians, fired on non-violent protesters in Palestinian villages, and demolished Palestinian homes, wells, and agricultural land.

Such Israeli actions have long outraged Egyptians living next door. However, thanks to such filtered reporting by the Times and others, Americans almost never learn of them. Instead, we just hear about Israel, which has the third to fifth most powerful military in the world, once again being victimized by attackers.

Since the Times' also almost never reports that Americans are Israel's number one funder, giving more US tax money to Israel than to any other country, despite Israel's wealth and diminutive size, many Americans fail to understand the growing hostility against the US created by our tax money to Israel.

On the eve of September 11th, we need to learn about the fundamental source of anger against the US. But don't look to the New York Times to tell us.

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Alison Weir's goals are peace and understanding and the realization of a real multi-cultural place where people are not continually scrutinized and referred to as 'terrorists' in order for one side to further its difficult political position. As a former journalist, Weir has traveled throughout the West Bank and Gaza, and speaks widely on this topic; in the past having given two briefings on Capitol Hill, three talks at the Asia Media Summit in Kuala Lumpur (at the end of the month she will be speaking at the Summit in Beijing), presentations in Ramallah and Bethlehem, and lectures at numerous campuses across the US, including Harvard Law School, Stanford, Yale, UC Berkeley, MIT, Vassar, and the Naval Postgraduate Institute.

>Weir has received awards from the Council on American Islamic Relations and the American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee, and she was asked to contribute a chapter to Project Censored's 2005 volume. She was inducted into membership of Phi Alpha Literary Society, founded in 1845 at Illinois College, the award citing her as a “Courageous journalist-lecturer on behalf of human rights." She was the first woman to receive an honorary membership in Phi Alpha history. Her writings on this topic have appeared in publications including The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, The Link, CounterPunch, the Bay Guardian, and anthologies published in the US and abroad. She was the narrator of the award-winning documentary "Occupation 101." Weir was the subject of the Public Access program "Off the Charts," produced by Alternate Focus, and is a member of the board of directors of the Council for the National Interest and New Policy.

End Israel's Unwarranted Murder of Kids