NYT, LAT: Hamas Popularity is Israel's Fault
This might be simply the most awesomest "everything is Israel's fault" journalistic angle ever. There's the irrelevance, the covert smuggling in of false assumptions, and the shameless willingness to excuse even the most willful Palestinian aggression. Seriously, this one is a gem - everything we've come to expect from some of America's leading journalistic outlets.
This New York Times story is headlined Israel Squeezes Gazans, Who Turn to Hamas in the news feeds. Apparently if Israel just let Hamas succeed in murdering Israelis, then Hamas would lose support in the Palestinian public. And the LA Times article is just as egregious:
Still, amid the uneasiness in Beit Hanoun was defiance over the possibility of a broadened Israeli incursion. Some voiced what they said was newfound support for Hamas in its showdown with Israel.
Israel is now being blamed for the popularity of the Palestinian government... among the Palestinians who elected that government! It's the combination of reflexive anti-Israeli journalism ("it's all Israel's fault") and the total lack of concern for logic (Hamas was elected by a majority of the Palestinian people) that makes these little asides trully awesome.
Incidentally, the NYT web blurb puts the same angle on the story, but it's actually a little more mendacious:
Many Palestinians believe Israel is trying to make them so miserable that they turn against the Hamas government.
This is such a bad explanation of Israel's impending Gaza campaign that one begins to suspect that the journalist has some sort of interest in misleading readers about the situation. The Palestinian government - the elected representatives of the Palestinian people - ordered an act of war against a neighboring state. The New York Times seems to believe that Israel should respond by saying ouch, looking pathetic, and asking the Palestinians very nicely not to do it again.
We think that Israel is done trying to convince the Palestinian people to stop supporting terrorists seeking the destruction of Israel - now they just want to be left alone, and are willing to enforce that separation. Why, after more than a decade of trying, should it be Israel's obligation to convince religious psychopaths or their supporters to give up their dreams of genocide?
Israel's goal is not to "make them so miserable that they turn against the Hamas government." Their goal is to bring Shalit home and to uproot the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure. This isn't a propaganda campaign - there is there a single credible person who's claimed that. But to the New York Times, it's very important for you to know that (a) Israel is making the Palestinians miserable and (b) Israel will fail and the brave spirit of the Palestinian people will live on.
That the framing is especially stupid because Israelis are actually doing the opposite of trying to starve out the Palestinians is - of course - largely beside the point by now. But here's the blurb anyway, so that you know that the New York Times wasn't just misleading you about motive, but also more or less lying to you about fact:
Israel opened the border to Gaza on Sunday to a limited supply of fuel and food, while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert repeated that his military would turn to ever-stronger actions to gain the release of a 19-year-old Israeli soldier captured last week.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
This New York Times story is headlined Israel Squeezes Gazans, Who Turn to Hamas in the news feeds. Apparently if Israel just let Hamas succeed in murdering Israelis, then Hamas would lose support in the Palestinian public. And the LA Times article is just as egregious:
Still, amid the uneasiness in Beit Hanoun was defiance over the possibility of a broadened Israeli incursion. Some voiced what they said was newfound support for Hamas in its showdown with Israel.
Israel is now being blamed for the popularity of the Palestinian government... among the Palestinians who elected that government! It's the combination of reflexive anti-Israeli journalism ("it's all Israel's fault") and the total lack of concern for logic (Hamas was elected by a majority of the Palestinian people) that makes these little asides trully awesome.
Incidentally, the NYT web blurb puts the same angle on the story, but it's actually a little more mendacious:
Many Palestinians believe Israel is trying to make them so miserable that they turn against the Hamas government.
This is such a bad explanation of Israel's impending Gaza campaign that one begins to suspect that the journalist has some sort of interest in misleading readers about the situation. The Palestinian government - the elected representatives of the Palestinian people - ordered an act of war against a neighboring state. The New York Times seems to believe that Israel should respond by saying ouch, looking pathetic, and asking the Palestinians very nicely not to do it again.
We think that Israel is done trying to convince the Palestinian people to stop supporting terrorists seeking the destruction of Israel - now they just want to be left alone, and are willing to enforce that separation. Why, after more than a decade of trying, should it be Israel's obligation to convince religious psychopaths or their supporters to give up their dreams of genocide?
Israel's goal is not to "make them so miserable that they turn against the Hamas government." Their goal is to bring Shalit home and to uproot the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure. This isn't a propaganda campaign - there is there a single credible person who's claimed that. But to the New York Times, it's very important for you to know that (a) Israel is making the Palestinians miserable and (b) Israel will fail and the brave spirit of the Palestinian people will live on.
That the framing is especially stupid because Israelis are actually doing the opposite of trying to starve out the Palestinians is - of course - largely beside the point by now. But here's the blurb anyway, so that you know that the New York Times wasn't just misleading you about motive, but also more or less lying to you about fact:
Israel opened the border to Gaza on Sunday to a limited supply of fuel and food, while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert repeated that his military would turn to ever-stronger actions to gain the release of a 19-year-old Israeli soldier captured last week.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
